Which College Football Received the Most NIL Cash in 2025?
By Carter Quinn
Last Updated on February 12, 2026
The 2025 College Football season was all about one team: the Indiana Hoosiers. The unheralded program had never won a national championship and had amassed just three Big Ten wins across the 2021, 2022, and 2023 seasons. In 2024, they improved to 8-1 in conference, reaching the playoffs for the first time, but no one could have anticipated what was to come.
Indiana erupted throughout 2025, completing a perfect regular season, courtesy of the brilliance of quarterback Fernando Mendoza. The 22-year-old junior became the first Hoosier to win the Heisman Trophy since the award’s 1935 inception, shattering program records for touchdowns and points while securing the No. 1 CFP seed. From there, he went on to lead his side to a first National Championship in school history, cementing his status as the consensus number one overall pick in the upcoming NFL draft in the process.
What might come as a surprise, however, is that Mendoza received just $2.2 million in NIL value, putting him just 28th nationally. So, which players were paid the most throughout the 2025 season? And, crucially, did they manage to live up to their costly billing? Let’s take a look.
Arch Manning
Arch Manning stood on the Texas sideline in early December, worth somewhere in the region of $6.8 million in NIL money, watching Alabama celebrate its College Football Playoff berth while the Longhorns packed for the offseason. The nephew of Super Bowl winners Peyton and Eli started the year ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll, but he could only lead his side to a modest 10-3 finish, left on the outside looking in.
Manning’s partnership portfolio reads like a Fortune 500 roster: Red Bull, EA Sports, Raising Cane’s, Vuori, Panini America, Warby Parker. His last name alone generates revenue streams most programs can’t match. But here’s what nearly $7 million couldn’t buy—consistent quarterback play. He completed just 61.4% of his passes for 3,163 yards, 26 touchdowns, and seven interceptions with a QBR of 70.5 that ranked 34th nationally, suffering 23 sacks in the process.
Texas lost to Ohio State in Week 1 with its QB throwing for just 170 yards. They then lost 29-21 to Florida, accounting for half of the Gators’ conference wins in a season where they finished 4-8 and fired their coach.
Manning wisely returned for 2026, postponing his NFL entry until 2027 at the earliest, and now online betting sites make the Longhorns genuine contenders to claim a first Natty in over two decades. The latest Lucky Rebel football odds price Texas as a +750 fourth-favorite to win the National Championship, with only Indiana, Notre Dame, and Ohio State considered more likely. If the young quarterback can live up to the billing and leave 2025 firmly in the rearview mirror, he will be considered a lock for a top ten selection in the 2027 draft.
Carson Beck
Carson Beck transferred from Georgia to Miami, chased the bag and the starting job after two National Championship wins backing up Stetson Bennett. His revenue sharing deal from Miami was worth a reported $4 million, plus he had NIL money coming in from brands like Chipotle, Powerade, Beats by Dre, and Morgan & Morgan. But unlike Manning, Beck actually justified the investment.
The senior completed 74.5 percent of his passes, second in the FBS, for 3,813 yards, 30 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. He led Miami to a 13-3 record and its first-ever College Football Playoff national championship game appearance, where the fairytale run would end at the hands of Cinderella-like Indiana.
Beck’s playoff run featured signature upsets: he helped demolish No. 7 Texas A&M, stun No. 2 Ohio State, and torch No. 6 Ole Miss. In the playoffs, he came alive, throwing for 838 yards and five touchdowns across four postseason games, including 509 yards and four scores in the CFP alone. If that wasn’t enough, the quarterback set a 24-year-old school record for single-season completion percentage, shattering the mark Cam Ward set before going No. 1 overall in last year’s draft.
But here’s the brutal reality: he’s not projected to go first overall like his predecessor. Far from it. In fact, he’s expected to be selected as a late third- to early fourth-round pick, No. 99 on the NFL Mock Draft Database’s consensus board, sixth quarterback in his class. Mel Kiper tags him “late day two, early day three” with a backup career trajectory written all over him. That seems harsh for someone who’s just orchestrated one of the finest seasons of Miami football in a generation.
Jeremiah Smith
Jeremiah Smith’s NIL valuation was pegged at $4.2 million as a college sophomore. Read that again. Four point two million dollars for a 19-year-old playing amateur athletics. Ohio State invested $35-plus million across its roster, and Smith stood as the crown jewel—partnerships with 7-Eleven, American Eagle, Adidas, Nintendo, Red Bull, and Lululemon bankrolling a teenager.
Then he went out and proved exactly why the Buckeyes broke the bank to secure his services. Seventy-six receptions for 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns while powering Ohio State to another impressive year, albeit one that would suffer a premature end in the playoffs. His maiden campaign saw him shatter the school’s freshman receiving records. Then in 2025, he earned Rose Bowl MVP honors with 187 yards and seven catches against Oregon.
His 56-yard catch on third-and-11 late in the fourth quarter of the 2024 national title game against Notre Dame—now immortalized as “3rd and Jeremiah”—set up Ohio State’s final points in a 34-23 win. He followed that up by ranking fifth nationally in touchdown receptions, tenth in receiving yards per game, leading the Big Ten in both metrics.
But perhaps most importantly for Ohio State fans, Smith announced he’s returning for 2026, postponing his NFL entry until 2027, where he’s already the consensus No. 1 overall pick regardless of position. Early projections tab him as a generational talent, with Matt Leinart predicting a Heisman Trophy run in 2026 because his dominance eliminates competition for votes. Teams desperate for franchise receivers—the Raiders, Giants, any rebuilding franchise—will mortgage future picks to land him.
