NIL
How NIL money reshaped NBA draft with fewer early entrants
Will Wade’s work building N.C. State into an immediate winner included the pursuit of an NBA draft entrant, just in case he returned to college.
It wasn’t a huge risk. With all the cash flowing in college, the number of early entrants in the NBA draft has continued to shrink. This year’s draft starts Wednesday night with its lowest total of those prospects in at least 10 years.
“Now you can play the long game a little bit more,” Wade told The Associated Press, referring to how college players can look at their futures. “Look, I can get paid the same I would get paid in the G League, the same I would get paid on a two-way (contract). Some guys are getting first-round money.”
And more money is on the way.
It has been four years since college athletes were permitted to profit off the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL), opening the door for athlete compensation that NCAA rules once forbade. July 1 marks the official start of revenue sharing, when schools can begin directly paying athletes after the $2.8 billion House antitrust settlement.
For Wade, that led to signing Texas Tech’s Darrion Williams after 247Sports’ fifth-ranked transfer withdrew from the draft.
“Basically now if you’re an early entry and you’re not a top-20, top-22 pick — where the money slots — you can pretty much make that in college,” the new Wolfpack coach said.
It’s all part of a seismic change that has rippled through college athletics since the pandemic, its impact touching the NBA. Players willing to “test the waters” in the draft before returning to school now have a lucrative option to consider against uncertain pro prospects.
And it shows in the numbers.
“With all the money that’s being thrown around in NIL, you’re having a lot less players put their names in,” Detroit Pistons president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon said. “You’re having pretty good players pulling their names out.”
Declining number of early entrants
This year’s drop is significant compared with the years before anyone had heard of COVID-19. There was a spike of college players jumping into the draft in the pandemic’s aftermath, when they were granted a free year of eligibility to temporarily make even a fourth-year senior an “early” entrant.
But those numbers had fallen as those five-year players cycled out of college basketball, and they’re now below pre-pandemic levels. That decline coincides with NIL’s July 2021 arrival, from athletes doing paid appearances or social-media endorsements to boosters forming collectives offering NIL packages amounting to de facto salaries.
As a result:
- Eighty-two players appeared on the NBA’s list of early entrants, primarily from American colleges with a smattering of other teams, down 49% from 2024 (162) and nearly 47% compared with the four-year average from 2016-19 (153.5).
- Thirty-two remained after withdrawal deadlines, down from 62 last year and an average of 72 from 2016-19.
- Adding international prospects, 109 players declared for the draft, down from 201 last year and a 205 average from 2016-19.
- And only 46 remained, down from 77 in 2024 and 83.8 per year from 2016-19.
More college players weighing options
Duke coach Jon Scheyer understands draft dynamics, both for no-doubt headliners and prospects facing less clarity. He sees college athlete compensation as a “legitimate game changer.”
“Hopefully it allows players to decide what’s truly best for their game,” Scheyer told the AP. “It allows them to analyze: ‘Am I actually ready for this or not?’ Where money doesn’t have to be the deciding factor. Because if money’s the deciding factor, that’s why you see kids not stick. The NBA’s cutthroat.”
The Blue Devils are expected to have three players selected in the first round Wednesday: presumptive No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg and top-10 prospects Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach. They also had players sorting through draft decisions.
Freshman Isaiah Evans — a slender wing with explosive scoring potential — withdrew instead of chasing first-round status through the draft process. Incoming transfer Cedric Coward from Washington State rapidly rose draft boards after the combine and remained in the draft.
“There’s no substituting the money you’re going to make if you’re a top-15, top-20 pick,” said Scheyer, entering Year 4 as successor to retired Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski. “But if you’re not solidified as a first-round pick, why risk it when you can have a solid year and a chance to go up or be in the same position the following season?”
College compensation is reshaping the draft pool
Langdon, himself a former Duke first-rounder, sees that evolution too.
His Pistons made their first playoff appearance since 2019 but lack a first-round selection and own a single pick in Thursday’s second round. Fewer candidates could make the already imperfect science of drafting even trickier in this new reality.
According to the NBA’s 2024-25 rookie scale, a player drafted midway through the first round would make roughly $3.5 million in first-year salary. That figure drops to about $2.8 million at No. 20, $2.3 million at No. 25 and $2.1 million with the 30th and final first-round pick.
A minimum first-year NBA salary is roughly $1.2 million.
“These NIL packages are starting to get up to 3 to 4 to 5 to 6 million dollars,” Langdon said. “These guys are not going to put their name in to be the 25th pick, or even the 18th pick. They are going to go back to school in hopes of being a lottery pick next year.
“With that pool of players decreasing, it kind of decreases the odds of the level of player we get at No. 37, just the pure mathematics.”
Current NBA players offer insight
Indiana Pacers big man Thomas Bryant and Oklahoma City Thunder counterpart Isaiah Hartenstein, who both played in the seven-game NBA Finals that ended Sunday, illustrate Langdon’s point.
They were back-to-back second-rounders in 2017 — Bryant at No. 42, Hartenstein at 43 — pushed down a draft board featuring early-entry college players in 33 of the 41 picks before them.
Bryant played two college seasons at Indiana before stints with five NBA teams, including the Denver Nuggets’ 2023 championship squad. Would the ability to make college money have changed his journey?
“To be honest, I see it from both sides,” Bryant said. “If you’re not going to get drafted, you understand that a kid needs money to live in college and everything. So I understand where they’re coming from on that end.
“But for me, I took the chance. I bet on myself and I believed in myself, and I worked to the very end. And the thing about me is that if I went down, I was going down swinging. I hang my hat on that. For some, it might not be the same case.”
The American-born Hartenstein moved to Germany at 11 and played in Lithuania before being drafted. As he put it: “Everyone’s journey is different.”
“You should have the right people around you to kind of guide you,” said Hartenstein, a newly minted NBA champion. “I mean, I was lucky that my dad, who was a professional before, kind of guided me. Depending on your circumstances, it’s hard to turn down guaranteed money. If there’s an opportunity to get in a good situation in the NBA, you do that. But it’s a hard decision.”
College can be more of an allure
At N.C. State, Wade’s pitch to Williams included a leading role and a shot at boosting his draft stock.
The 6-foot-6 junior averaged 15.1 points with multiple big NCAA Tournament performances as the Red Raiders reached the Elite Eight, nearly beating eventual champion Florida.
“He was most likely going to be a second-round draft pick, and his package here is better than probably he would’ve gotten as a second-round pick,” Wade said. “We certainly talked about that. We went over that. We went over the math of everything. We went over the plan on how to accomplish that.”
That’s not to say it’s easy at the college level in this new landscape. Roster management is tricky, including a balancing act of maintaining financial resources to potentially land one player while risking missing out on others.
“It’s the way life works; it’s the way it should work,” Wade said. “If there’s no risk, there’s no reward. The riskiest players, in terms of waiting on the money and waiting them out, are the best players. That’s why they’re in the draft process. We’re not going to be scared of that.”
Nor should he, not with the allure of campus life these days.
AP’s Tim Reynolds and Larry Lage contributed.
Originally Published:
During an interview on UK’s radio network, Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart stressed that his department is on solid footing in the ever-changing college sports landscape.
“We will have to continue to make sure that we’re within the framework that we can be effective, and that we’re giving our coaches and our student-athletes the best opportunity,” Barnhart said in a taped interview with Kentucky radio broadcaster Tom Leach. “We are incentivized at a high level, because there’s no one (who) wants to win more than our coaches, no one wants to win more than our student-athletes and our fans. Why in the world would we do anything but give ourselves the best chance to do that?”
Barnhart’s comments — which came prior to the men’s basketball game against Indiana in Rupp Arena — came amidst continued discourse about how UK is positioned in the current college sports landscape.
Barnhart, who has been the athletic director in Lexington since 2002, has been the subject of fan angst on numerous fronts. This includes Kentucky’s investment in name, image and likeness resources, the revenue-sharing budget and the school’s multimedia-rights partnership with JMI Sports, which is set to run through 2040. Kentucky and JMI Sports agreed to a new partnership deal over the summer.
“There’s other schools doing it very similar to what we’re doing,” Barnhart said. “Whether that is through their multimedia rights partner, they’re bringing some of their collectives in house, absolutely they are. There is no one size fits all. I think that’s what everyone wants to assume, is there’s only one way. There is not only one way. There’s multiple ways to do this thing, and we think this is effective for us.”
Barnhart added that he believes UK has the ability to adapt to the current landscape based on its partnership with JMI.
“It also gave us an ability to be flexible in terms of the BBNIL as we go forward in that suite of opportunities for our young people,” Barnhart said. “So they’ve got real time opportunities that they came in, JMI came in, and said ‘Here’s some revenues on top of what we generally create. And these will be specific for our student athletes to be able to access those in the NIL world.’”
These criticisms have come while major changes have occurred to UK’s football program and as the men’s basketball team has floundered to begin its season.
On Dec. 1, UK fired former football coach Mark Stoops after 13 seasons. The Wildcats moved swiftly to replace him, hiring Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein — a former quarterback at Louisville who grew up a Kentucky fan — later that same day.
On the basketball front, second-year head coach Mark Pope is off to a 6-4 start this season, with an 0-4 record against high-major opponents. Kentucky isn’t included in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 rankings for the first time under Pope’s leadership. Earlier this year, the Herald-Leader reported that the payroll number for the UK basketball team is around $22 million.
Following Stein’s introductory press conference Dec. 3, Barnhart was asked by the Herald-Leader about the football program’s revenue-sharing budget.
“We’re confident in what we’re doing,” Barnhart said in an animated response. “People have asked that question 19 different ways, from all the stuff that’s been going on, and it’s exhausting. Enough. Enough about, ‘Have we got enough?’ We’ve got enough. We’re working at it just like everyone else is working at it. We’re no different.”
Kentucky hasn’t disclosed how it’s splitting the $20.5 million it’s allowed to distribute to athletes between football, men’s basketball and other non-revenue sports. This has led to speculation about what those monetary breakdowns are.
Additionally, Kentucky’s multimedia rights partnership with JMI sports has come under fan scrutiny this week. JMI Sports is responsible for negotiating name, image and likeness endorsement deals for UK athletes, among other duties.
This aspect, specifically, has been a talking point due to Pope’s lack of recruiting results with top high school players. Kentucky basketball doesn’t have a commitment from the 2026 recruiting class. A pair of five-star high school seniors — small forward Tyran Stokes and power forward Christian Collins — were thought to be on the doorstep of committing to the Wildcats prior to the November early signing period.
Both players remain uncommitted. Pope’s program is one of only two SEC schools, along with Georgia, yet to land a commitment from the 2026 high school class.
Near the end of his weekly press conference Friday afternoon, Pope turned a question about his thoughts on adding a “general manager” position to his staff into a defense of the JMI deal.
“We have this incredible partnership with JMI that’s enabled us to do so much. They’re doing incredible work for us,” Pope said. “The way Mitch has kind of worked this and led this… I have a whole team of people that are working contracts, working possibilities.”
“One of the complicated things right now is that there’s not a clear interpretation of exactly what the rules are,” Pope added. “… We’ll make sure that we always air on the side of doing this legal. Which is a guessing game, because nobody knows exactly what’s legal right now. There’s just a million different parts of this.”
Barnhart was on the NCAA committee tasked with implementing the components that a federal judge approved in the House Settlement, which allowed schools to directly pay athletes. This included the creation of a clearinghouse to approve NIL deals and ensure they met fair market value and were for legitimate business purposes.
Barnhart acknowledged that, sometimes, UK student-athletes aren’t able to use UK’s logos and other marks in outside NIL deals. But he also pointed to national NIL opportunities that have come the way of student-athletes during major events like March Madness. An example of this was earlier this year when former UK basketball player Amari Williams struck up a deal with Weetabix, a British breakfast food.
“I think it shows our ability to move where we need to move, and adapt when we need to adapt,” Barnhart said. “I think there’s a lot of programs out there who would have loved to have the opportunity to do what we have done.”
Barnhart also addressed the thinking that Kentucky’s NIL opportunities are restrictive to student-athletes.
“Are there things that when they come to the University of Kentucky — and they take opportunity, they take revenues from the revenue share or from the NIL — yes, there are some responsibilities they have to us, and that’s part of this deal. That’s that’s no different here than it is anywhere else in the country,” Barnhart said. “But at the end of the day, yeah, we are going to try and have people work with our folks first, if we can, and if that’s something that doesn’t work, and they want to go do some other things, they have the opportunity to do that.”
Pope also used his lengthy response Friday to praise JMI Sports president Paul Archey and Kim Shelton, who is the senior vice president of NIL Strategy and the executive director of UK NIL for JMI Sports.
Shelton — a former UK soccer player who recently served as the CEO of Lexington Sporting Club — also previously spent nearly a decade at JMI Sports in roles such as vice president of sponsorship sales, chief revenue officer and president of UK Sports and Campus Marketing.
“We’ve got great people that have done an amazing job in the JMI world of providing us resources for our program, and they are concerned,” Barnhart said. “It doesn’t benefit them to restrict us or to hurt our program or not give us the best chance to put the best roster we can on the court or on the field or wherever that happens to be.”
Cameron Drummond
Lexington Herald-Leader
Nick Saban might be done patrolling a sideline, but he isn’t done challenging the sport he helped define.
Now an analyst on ESPN’s College GameDay, the seven-time national champion is pushing a simple, sweeping idea: college football needs a real boss. Not a committee, not a loose alliance of conferences—a single commissioner with authority over the entire sport, backed by a competition committee that can standardize how the game is run.
‘We don’t have that right now’
In Saban’s view, the mix of NIL money, constant transfers and conference realignment has pushed college football into a gray area where everyone has power and no one has control. He argues that without a centralized voice setting rules and expectations, the sport drifts.
Saban contrasted the current setup with an earlier era in which scholarship agreements spelled out academic standards, transfer expectations and long-term commitments between players and schools. Those guardrails, he believes, have been eroded to the point that the sport is flirting with chaos. If you’re not backing stronger structure, Saban suggested, you’re effectively siding with “a little bit of anarchy.”
The focus and money surrounding the College Football Playoff, in his mind, have only masked deeper structural problems.
Is Saban the obvious choice?
Saban isn’t alone in calling for a commissioner. Last year, James Franklin—then at Penn State and now at Virginia Tech—publicly argued for exactly that role and even floated Saban as the ideal candidate, saying college football needs someone who wakes up and goes to bed thinking only about what’s best for the sport.
Whether the job ever exists, and whether Saban would actually want it, remains an open question. But his message is blunt: college football is at a crossroads. For the former Alabama coach, the next era can’t just be about bigger TV deals and a larger playoff. It has to start with someone finally grabbing the wheel.
The College Football Playoffs begin this week, and Dr. Pick’ Em–my favorite pigskin prognosticator, whose 83% success rate is as frightening as it is accurate–sent a postcard from the Caribbean to mark the occasion. On the front, a pristine beach. On the back, his verdict on the real winners scrawled in black Sharpie: “The Rich and Powerful.”
The bracket reveal is engineered to feel like the season’s crescendo, a pure celebration of merit. But Dr. Pick ‘Em, whose analytical precision is matched only by a cynicism grand enough to fill a stadium, sees the final rankings for what they are: the financial scaffolding of a system designed to protect two conferences, six high-rent bowls, and the owner’s box–the broadcast networks.
In the age of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and the open transfer portal, college football finally has the ingredients for its own version of a magical tournament. Any ambitious program is now one phenomenal class of transfers away from being a true Cinderella, much like the teams that make March Madness so captivating. The overnight success of teams like Tulane, Vanderbilt, and Indiana demonstrates that NIL brings us closer to NFL parity, where a year-to-year talent infusion can spark a rapid ascent.
Yet, the CFP selection committee does its level best to discourage these potential Cinderellas. Instead of rewarding the magic, we have a system that awards a county fair’s blue ribbon based on the pig’s grandfather’s pedigree rather than the quality of its bacon. The committee favors the brand over the product, the résumé over the reality on the field.
The bowls, the networks, and the established power conferences act as the evil stepmother, using their structural power–television slots, scheduling prestige, and the subjective final vote–to ensure their favorites get the spotlight. The CFP, as currently constructed, discourages the glass slipper moment.
The transfer market and the conference shield
The inclusion of Indiana as a top seed is the perfect, living example of an NIL-fueled Cinderella story, but it comes with a massive asterisk that the committee ignores.
For decades, Indiana was the quintessential “potato cellar” program. When Coach Curt Cignetti was hired, he utilized the one-year blitz. He built a gritty foundation with over 30 transfers in his first season, then proved the model sustainable by reloading in year two with difference-makers like quarterback Fernando Mendoza. He and defensive anchors Mikail Kamara and Aiden Fisher transformed a perennial Big Ten bottom-feeder into a powerhouse.
But let’s be honest: Indiana’s Cinderella story only has a happy ending because of the logo on its jersey.
If this same scrappy, transfer-fueled squad were in the SEC – take Vanderbilt as a prime example – it would have faced Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and LSU. Instead of a pristine record and a No. 1 seed, the Hoosiers would be sitting at 8-4 or 9-3, likely watching the playoffs from home. A mid-major with the same talent would be fighting for the single “Group of Five” crumb left on the table. Indiana got the invite not just because it is good, but because the Big Ten provided a path protected by brand bias.
The Big Ten’s mirage vs. the SEC meat grinder
This year’s bracket has reignited the sport’s oldest feud, with arguments echoing from Columbus barbershops to Tuscaloosa BBQ joints. Big Ten fans point to the top of the board: their conference secured two of the top four seeds. It looks like dominance. But the illusion shatters upon inspection. The Big Ten placed only one other team, Penn State, in the 12-team field – a stark lack of depth.
Contrast that with the SEC, which placed five teams in the bracket but saw three more top-25 teams excluded. This isn’t about conference pride; it’s about the brutal physics of the schedule. Metrics like SP+, which measure dominance, show the SEC’s top tier dwarfing the Big Ten’s. For an SEC contender, a “break” means facing a Kentucky team full of future NFL draft picks. The bruises are cumulative.
The committee, in a rare nod to reality, tacitly admitted that surviving the SEC gauntlet with two losses is a more impressive feat than navigating a top-heavy Big Ten schedule unscathed, ranking a 10-2 Texas A&M ahead of an 11-1 champion from a weaker conference.
The Aggie anomaly: earning the slipper
Which brings us to the Texas A&M Aggies (11-1, No. 7 seed), the team Dr. Pick ‘Em believes is currently playing the best football in America. By any measure, the Aggies are surging. Their defense is suffocating, and their offense has found a ruthless rhythm. Their body of work was forged in the SEC’s fiercest fires.
Their single blemish came not in a sleepy September game, but in the final week against a desperate Texas Longhorns squad fighting for its playoff life. In the cold calculus of evaluation, A&M was penalized for the difficulty of its environment and denied a first-round bye, a classic case of the system favoring the “clean” résumé over the “hard” one.
Meanwhile, contenders like Notre Dame built cases on “Soft Landings.” The Irish touted a win over a dysfunctional Arkansas as proof of grit, while padding their schedule with scheduled convalescences against the likes of Stanford and Virginia. By excluding the Irish, the committee sent a powerful message: a glossy win total built on cupcakes is a liability.
Cathedrals, chapels, and a ray of hope
The current two-tiered ecosystem is patently unfair. The big winners are the Cathedrals of Revenue – the major bowls and networks. The dozens of other bowl games became Sidelined Chapels.
However, there is a sliver of hope. An expanded playoff system might actually rescue the very bowl ecosystem it appears to be decimating. By moving the first four CFP games to campus sites, the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds are now exclusively hosted by the New Year’s Six bowls. That guarantees those premier games remain significant and hugely profitable.
If the CFP were to expand again to 16 teams, more bowls would be absorbed into the playoff structure, providing guaranteed relevance and financial survival for more of the postseason. In this way, the CFP’s growth could offer a lifeline to the institutions it previously left floundering.
For now, though, the system implicitly tells fans of “Chapel” schools that their passion is secondary. Notre Dame’s reaction–a public sulk with players sprinting for the portal–taught us that for many, only the Cathedral matters.
Prediction: the gauntlet’s payoff
Despite the bias, Dr. Pick ‘Em is betting on the one asset the system can’t purchase: Momentum. He sees this bracket breaking for the battle-tested.
First Round: Oklahoma survives a slugfest against Alabama, while Texas A&M smothers Miami in College Station.
The Run: A&M’s physicality breaks the will of Texas Tech’s high-flying offense, followed by a defensive masterpiece against Georgia.
The Championship: The moneyed favorite, Ohio State, against the fire-forged Texas A&M.
Final Prediction: Texas A&M 31, Ohio State 27
The rich usually get richer in this sport. But this January, Dr. Pick ‘Em is wagering that a team forged in fire will prove that a champion can still be crowned by the scoreboard, not by pedigree.
But don’t hold your breath for a total revolution. The system makes sure the stepsisters get to the dance while the Cinderellas stay home.
Updated Dec. 13, 2025, 8:16 p.m. ET
Fernando Mendoza balked at entertaining the Heisman Trophy ceremony as an assured outcome Friday, even as he arrived in New York a comfortable betting favorite to win the award.
As of an afternoon press session, Mendoza hadn’t even finished his speech.
Yet even as he artfully sidestepped suggestions the award was already won, Mendoza did have a firm answer for where the 45-pound bronze trophy should live, if he is selected as its winner Saturday night.
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Fernando Mendoza, the enthusiastic quarterback of No. 1 Indiana, won the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night, becoming the first Hoosier to win college football’s most prestigious award since its inception in 1935.
Mendoza claimed 2,362 points, including 643 first-place votes. He beat Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia (1,435 points), Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love (719 points) and Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin (432 points).
Mendoza’s Heisman win was emphatic. He finished first in all six Heisman regions, the first to do so since Caleb Williams in 2022. He was named on 95.16% of all ballots, tying him with Marcus Mariota in 2014 for the second highest in the award’s history and he received 84.6% of total possible points, which is the seventh highest in Heisman history.
“I haven’t seen the numbers yet,” said Mendoza, “but it’s such an honor to be mentioned with these guys (Pavia, Love and Sayin). It’s really a credit to our team. It’s a team award.”
Mendoza guided the Hoosiers to their first No. 1 ranking and the top seed in the 12-team College Football bracket, throwing for 2,980 yards and a national-best 33 touchdown passes while also running for six scores. Indiana, the last unbeaten team in major college football, will play a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1.
Mendoza, the Hoosiers’ first-year starter after transferring from California, is the triggerman for an offense that surpassed program records for touchdowns and points set during last season’s surprise run to the CFP.
A redshirt junior, the once lightly recruited Miami native is the second Heisman finalist in school history, joining 1989 runner-up Anthony Thompson. Mendoza is the seventh Indiana player to earn a top-10 finish in Heisman balloting and it marks another first in program history — having back-to-back players in the top 10. Hoosiers quarterback Kurtis Rourke was ninth last year.
With his teammates chanting “HeismanDoza” as he addressed the media, he said there felt like a realistic chance of winning the Heisman when the Hoosiers routed then No. 19 Illinois 63-10 on Sept. 20.
“At that point my boys (teammates) said we might make it to New York (for the award ceremony),” he said. “It was lighthearted at the time, but that’s when it started. “
Quarterbacks have won the Heisman four of the last five years, with two-way player Travis Hunter of Colorado ending the run last season.
Mendoza is the 43rd quarterback to win the Heisman and the second winner of Latin American descent to claim the trophy. Stanford’s Jim Plunkett was the first in 1970.
“Although I grew up in America, my four grandparents are all from Cuba,” he said. “I had the opportunity to go there and that was important to me. I credit the love to my grandparents and the Hispanic community.”
The Heisman Trophy presentation came after a number of accolades were already awarded. Mendoza was named The Associated Press player of the year earlier this week and picked up the Maxwell and Davey O’Brien awards Friday night while Love won the Doak Walker Award.
Mendoza and Pavia clearly exemplify the changing landscape of using the transfer portal in college football. Mendoza is the seventh transfer to win the award in the last nine years. Vanderbilt is Pavia’s third school.
Pavia finished second with 189 first-place votes. He threw for a school-record 3,192 yards and 27 touchdowns for the Commodores, who were pushing for a CFP berth all the way to the bracket announcement. He is the first Heisman finalist in Vanderbilt history.
Generously listed as 6 feet tall, Pavia led Vanderbilt to its first 10-win season along with six wins against Southeastern Conference foes. That includes four wins over ranked programs as Vandy reached No. 9, its highest ranking in The Associated Press Top 25 since 1937.
Pavia went from being unrecruited out of high school to junior college, New Mexico State and finally Vanderbilt in 2024 through the transfer portal.
Vandy next plays in the ReliaQuest Bowl against Iowa on Dec. 31.
The last running back to win the Heisman was Alabama’s Derrick Henry in 2015. Love put himself in the mix with an outstanding season for Notre Dame. He finished with 46 first-place votes.
The junior from St. Louis was fourth in the Bowl Subdivision in yards rushing (1,372), fifth in per-game average (114.3) and third with 18 rushing touchdowns for the Fighting Irish, who missed out on a CFP bid and opted not to play in a bowl game.
He was the first player in Notre Dame’s storied history to produce multiple TD runs of 90 or more yards, a 98-yarder against Indiana in the first round of last year’s playoffs and a 94-yarder against Boston College earlier this season.
Sayin led the Buckeyes to a No. 1 ranking for most of the season, throwing for 3,329 yards while tying for second in the country with 31 TD passes ahead of their CFP quarterfinal at the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 31.
The sophomore from Carlsbad, California, arrived at Ohio State after initially committing to Alabama and entering the transfer portal following a coaching change. He played four games last season before winning the starting job. He led the Buckeyes to a 14-7 win in the opener against preseason No. 1 Texas and kept the team atop the AP Top 25 for 13 straight weeks, tying its second-longest run.
Sayin follows a strong lineage of Ohio State quarterbacks since coach Ryan Day arrived in 2017. Dwayne Haskins (2018), Justin Fields (2019), C.J. Stroud (2021), and Kyle McCord (2023) averaged 3,927 passing yards, 40 TDs, and six interceptions, along with a 68.9% completion rate during their first seasons.
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NIL
Here’s how much money Heisman Trophy finalists Mendoza, Pavia and Love made from NIL deals this season
By Weston Blasi
The Heisman Trophy award may not come with a cash prize, but these finalists have already scored millions through their name, image and likeness deals
Fernando Mendoza of the Indiana Hoosiers celebrates after defeating the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Big Ten Championship Game on Dec. 6.
It pays to be the Heisman.
The final voting for the 2025 Heisman Trophy will take place on Saturday, as the top players in college football compete for the game’s highest individual honor.
The Heisman Trophy, given to the most outstanding player in college football, doesn’t come with any cash prizes – just prestige. But while the Heisman finalists may not be paid for winning, they’re still among the highest earners in college sports when it comes to name, image and likeness (NIL) deals.
College athletes have been allowed to leverage their influence and make money from NIL deals since 2021, after decades of having to avoid any form of payment that could compromise their amateur status and NCAA eligibility. Now, many of the top student-athletes earn millions of dollars each year from NIL arrangements.
The four finalists for the Heisman this year are Fernando Mendoza, Diego Pavia, Julian Sayin and Jeremiyah Love.
Here’s at look at what the 2025 Heisman finalists are estimated to have made from NIL deals this year, according to On3’s deal tracker.
Fernando Mendoza, QB, $2.6 million
Fernando Mendoza of the Indiana Hoosiers runs the ball in a game against the Oregon Ducks.
Indiana University quarterback Fernando Mendoza was not a highly rated Heisman contender headed into the season – but Mendoza had a great 2025 campaign, leading Indiana to its first Big Ten conference title since 1967, a 13-0 record and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff.
Mendoza won a separate Associated Press player of the year award, and is the betting favorite to win Heisman, according to DraftKings (DKNG) odds.
Mendoza has an NIL deal with sports-apparel giant Adidas (XE:ADS) (ADDYY).
“At the beginning of the year, I saw the list of the top 10 Heisman contenders, and evidently [my name] wasn’t there,” he said about the award.
But that didn’t discourage Mendoza. “I was like, ‘Wow, I want to make a goal for myself.’ I prayed about, like, if I could make it to the ceremony, how cool that would be,” he said. “Now that it’s come to fruition, I’m able to share that moment with people who appreciate it. It’s such a cool moment.”
Related: A $100 million NFL contract isn’t enough money to last a lifetime, says former football star Odell Beckham Jr.
Diego Pavia, QB, $2.5 million
Quarterback Diego Pavia on the Vanderbilt Commodores celebrates after defeating the Auburn Tigers.
Vanderbilt University quarterback Diego Pavia threw 27 touchdowns this season, leading his team to the eighth-best scoring offense in the country.
Pavia, who has the second-best odds to win the Heisman, behind Mendoza, is expected to declare for April’s NFL draft.
Pavia has NIL deals with AutoPro, Raising Cane’s and the NIL Store.
He also recently joked on “The Pivot Podcast” that he would donate his 2025 NIL money if one of the lower-ranked teams like Tulane or James Madison won the College Football Playoff this year.
Julian Sayin, QB, $2.5 million
Quarterback Julian Sayin of the Ohio State Buckeyes enters Ohio Stadium prior to a game against the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Ohio State University quarterback Julian Saying led his team to yet another College Football Playoff bid this year, in addition to his Heisman-hopeful season. It’s the fifth time in the last eight years that an Ohio State signal-caller has been a Heisman finalist.
Sayin threw 31 touchdown passes this season, which was third in the nation. He has NIL deals with The Foundation (Ohio State’s collective), Panini and EA Sports (EA).
Related: Why Michigan’s Sherrone Moore probably won’t get paid the millions left on his contract – unlike other recently fired college football coaches
Jeremiyah Love, RB, $1.6 million
Jeremiyah Love of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish celebrates after a touchdown.
University of Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love is the only non-quarterback among this year’s Hesiman finalists.
Love was fourth in the nation with 1,372 rushing yards, and led Notre Dame to a 10-2 record. Unfortunately for the Fighting Irish, they narrowly missed out on the College Football Playoff.
Love has NIL deals with Samsung (KR:005930), Celsius (CELH) and New Balance.
The 2025 Heisman winner will be announced at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, Dec. 13, on ABC.
From the archives: The number of millionaire college athletes has tripled
-Weston Blasi
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
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