College Football NIL Rankings 2026: Top 10 Players

Darian Mensah leads On3’s current college football NIL ranking at $6.5 million. Dante Moore, Jeremiah Smith and Trinidad Chambliss form the next value tier at $5 million each in the source’s 3 September 2026 update.

Those numbers are not an audited payroll. On3 now describes its figure as a current player contract value based on confirmed contracts or insider reporting. This page keeps that definition attached to the ranking and shows where another current model reaches a different answer.

For the underlying methodology, see our guide to how NIL valuations are calculated, including the difference between a model estimate, a deal-based value, and a disclosed contract.

How this college football NIL ranking works

This table reproduces the first ten players on On3’s college football page, checked by SportsLook on 4 September 2026. It covers college football players only, not high-school prospects, basketball players, team budgets or collective fundraising.

On3 changed its method on 1 July 2026. Its older model estimated marketing and endorsement potential. The current method aims to track contract value from colleges and collectives, using confirmed contracts where available and insider reporting about negotiations, roster demand, position need, program market and deal activity elsewhere.

We do not add our own dollar estimate. When two players have the same displayed value, they share a value rank even if On3 places them in a sequence. The source-position column preserves the order readers saw on the live page.

Top 10 college football NIL values in September 2026

Source position	Value rank	Player	School	Position	On3 value
1	1	Darian Mensah	Miami	QB	$6.5m
2	T-2	Dante Moore	Oregon	QB	$5.0m
3	T-2	Jeremiah Smith	Ohio State	WR	$5.0m
4	T-2	Trinidad Chambliss	Ole Miss	QB	$5.0m
5	5	Sam Leavitt	LSU	QB	$4.5m
6	T-6	Demond Williams Jr.	Washington	QB	$4.0m
7	T-6	Jordan Seaton	LSU	OT	$4.0m
8	T-6	Josh Hoover	Indiana	QB	$4.0m
9	9	Drew Mestemaker	Oklahoma State	QB	$3.5m
10	T-10 at cutoff	Bryce Underwood	Michigan	QB	$3.0m

Source: On3 College Football NIL Valuations, updated 3 September 2026 and checked 4 September. Values and affiliations are a dated source snapshot.

Mensah has a $1.5 million lead over the three players in the next value tier. Eight of the ten displayed players are quarterbacks. Jeremiah Smith is the only wide receiver, while Jordan Seaton is the only offensive lineman.

The tenth-place boundary needs a warning. Bryce Underwood is the tenth player shown, but several players immediately below him also have a displayed value of $3 million. He is part of a wider cutoff tie, not the only player at that amount.

The players in On3’s first ten positions

1. Darian Mensah, Miami quarterback, $6.5 million

Mensah is the only player above $5 million in the current On3 football table. His $6.5 million value is also reported in an August Associated Press examination of college football NIL spending, which identified him as Miami’s quarterback.

The cross-check supports the published figure, but it does not turn a private compensation package into audited income. Contract timing, services, taxes and the split between different payment sources are not available from the ranking.

T-2. Dante Moore, Oregon quarterback, $5 million

Moore is the first of three players with the same $5 million value. On3 displays him second and lists Oregon as his school.

SportsLook treats the amount as a tie. The public figure gives no defensible reason to rank Moore above Smith or Chambliss by value alone.

T-2. Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State wide receiver, $5 million

Smith is the only wide receiver in the first ten positions. His $5 million figure matches Moore and Chambliss, so the three players share the same value rank here.

His inclusion also prevents a misleading conclusion that every top football valuation belongs to a quarterback. It does not establish how much of the figure comes from a particular brand or payment source.

T-2. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss quarterback, $5 million

Chambliss completes the $5 million tier. On3 lists him with Ole Miss and places him fourth in its visible sequence.

A same-day search crawl swapped the order of Chambliss and Smith while leaving both at $5 million. Treating them as tied preserves the information the source can support without inventing a difference.

5. Sam Leavitt, LSU quarterback, $4.5 million

Leavitt sits alone at $4.5 million, halfway between the $5 million tier and the three players at $4 million. On3 lists him as an LSU quarterback in the 3 September snapshot.

The NIL Standard gives Leavitt a higher $6 million estimate. That difference belongs to the providers’ methods, so we do not average the two values.

T-6. Demond Williams Jr., Washington quarterback, $4 million

Williams is one of three players valued at $4 million. On3 lists him with Washington and places him sixth in the source order.

The dollar figure ties him with Seaton and Hoover. A sequential source position does not prove a higher contract value when the displayed amounts are equal.

T-6. Jordan Seaton, LSU offensive tackle, $4 million

Seaton is the only offensive lineman in the first ten. The Associated Press also reported a roughly $4 million figure after his move to LSU, making him one of two players in this table whose current amount received an independent reporting cross-check.

His position is unusual in a quarterback-heavy group. It should not be read as a typical value for college offensive tackles because this table covers the top end, not an average.

T-6. Josh Hoover, Indiana quarterback, $4 million

Hoover shares the $4 million tier with Williams and Seaton. On3 lists Indiana as his school and places him eighth in its visible order.

Nothing in the displayed dollar value separates the three tied players. The value rank therefore stays T-6 even though their source positions differ.

9. Drew Mestemaker, Oklahoma State quarterback, $3.5 million

Mestemaker is ninth in the source order at $3.5 million. He is the only player at that displayed amount within the first ten.

His value is $500,000 below the T-6 group and $500,000 above the displayed cutoff. Those gaps describe On3’s table, not a verified difference in cash already received.

T-10 at the cutoff. Bryce Underwood, Michigan quarterback, $3 million

Underwood is the tenth player shown and is listed with Michigan. His $3 million value does not make him the sole tenth-highest player, because On3 displays more $3 million players immediately below him.

That boundary is easy to miss when a page promises a top 10. The honest description is that Underwood occupies source position 10 within a larger tied value tier.

Why quarterbacks dominate the current top 10

Quarterbacks fill eight of the first ten positions. On3 says its current estimates consider roster demand, position need, program market and active deal information, all of which can move a quarterback’s value when teams compete for a starter.

The table still does not establish a typical quarterback premium. It contains only the highest values and has no comparable sample of every player by position. Averages or causal claims would require a broader disclosed dataset.

Jordan Seaton’s place at $4 million is the clearest exception to the quarterback pattern. The AP reported that his package at LSU involved several promotional relationships, but private terms remain limited. Jeremiah Smith supplies the other exception as a wide receiver at $5 million.

Why Arch Manning is first on another current list

Arch Manning is not in On3’s first ten. On3 showed him at source position 20 with a $2.5 million value when checked. The NIL Standard, however, placed him first at $6.8 million.

Provider	Leader	Published value	What the provider measures
On3	Darian Mensah	$6.5m	Current contract value informed by confirmed contracts or insider reporting
The NIL Standard	Arch Manning	$6.8m	Modeled football market value using program economics, position, production, experience and other published inputs

Neither result should be silently inserted into the other model. The providers answer related but different questions, use different evidence and update on different schedules. The source name and date are part of every defensible NIL ranking.

NIL valuation, earnings and school pay are different numbers

Readers often reach a ranking after seeing a headline about the highest NIL deals across college sports. Four figures may appear around the same player, but they do not mean the same thing.

Figure	What it can tell you	What it cannot prove
Provider valuation	Where one tracker places a player under its stated method and date	Audited cash received or one public contract
Disclosed deal value	The reported face value of a named agreement	Annual cash, after-tax income or whether every condition was met
Direct school revenue share	Compensation paid by a school under the post-settlement system	Third-party endorsement income
Estimated take-home income	A calculation after assumed taxes, fees and timing	The player’s real finances without the contract and tax records

The NCAA’s current guidance says a third-party NIL deal requires defined use of an athlete’s name, image or likeness for a valid business purpose. Direct school payments belong to a separate compensation channel. Our college athlete pay explainer covers that system in more detail.

What can change this ranking

On3’s football page is a live table, not a permanent season record. A transfer, new agreement, roster need, eligibility change or new insider report can alter a value or affiliation.

Method changes matter just as much as player news. An older On3 article may show a different leader because the company replaced its marketing-potential model with the current contract-value method on 1 July 2026. A newer number should not be pasted into an old table unless every row and the method are rechecked together.

SportsLook will review the source monthly and sooner after a method change or major player move. A routine no-change check may advance the verification date, but it will not change the visible modification date unless the article itself receives a real editorial or data update.

How the football table fits the overall NIL picture

This page answers a narrow question about football players in one current dataset. It does not mean the ten players are the top ten across all college sports. Basketball players occupy several places in On3’s overall post-July table.

Use the overall NIL ranking hub for the cross-sport list and its separately dated women’s and high-school snapshots. Browse the SportsLook earnings hub for other salary, prize-money and athlete-compensation guides.

The separation is deliberate. A football table, an overall table, a team-spending estimate and a women’s snapshot can all be useful, but only when each keeps its own population, method and cutoff date.