Seven Big Ten quarterbacks have a better Performance component than Bryce Underwood. All seven finish below him.
All eighteen projected Big Ten starting quarterbacks, scored on four published components: Performance at 35%, NIL Visibility at 20%, Social Power at 20%, Fan Demand at 25%.
In the SEC the column that decided the board was Fan Demand, because one quarterback had 55 in it and nobody else had more than 15. The Big Ten does not work that way. Sixteen of these eighteen sit at 0 or 5, so the fan column sorts almost nobody.
What sorts this conference is fame.
The board
| # | Quarterback | School | NIL Index | Perf | Vis | Social | Fan |
| 1 | Dante Moore | Oregon | 58.3 | 63 | 100 | 81 | 0 |
| 2 | Julian Sayin | Ohio State | 54.5 | 53 | 80 | 81 | 15 |
| 3 | Aidan Chiles | Northwestern | 54.2 | 53 | 47 | 62 | 55 |
| 4 | Nico Iamaleava | UCLA | 54.2 | 58 | 89 | 75 | 5 |
| 5 | Bryce Underwood | Michigan | 53.5 | 47 | 91 | 88 | 5 |
| 6 | Rocco Becht | Penn State | 48.4 | 60 | 66 | 71 | 0 |
| 7 | Josh Hoover | Indiana | 47.1 | 58 | 59 | 69 | 5 |
| 8 | Demond Williams Jr. | Washington | 45.5 | 57 | 57 | 64 | 5 |
| 9 | Anthony Colandrea | Nebraska | 45.4 | 60 | 50 | 66 | 5 |
| 10 | Jayden Maiava | USC | 43.0 | 59 | 52 | 60 | 0 |
| 11 | Katin Houser | Illinois | 42.6 | 55 | 47 | 63 | 5 |
| 12 | Colton Joseph | Wisconsin | 41.1 | 55 | 41 | 62 | 5 |
| 13 | Malik Washington | Maryland | 41.0 | 46 | 63 | 62 | 0 |
| 14 | Drake Lindsey | Minnesota | 35.9 | 44 | 43 | 60 | 0 |
| 15 | Ryan Browne | Purdue | 35.8 | 46 | 41 | 58 | 0 |
| 16 | Dylan Lonergan | Rutgers | 31.6 | 34 | 39 | 59 | 0 |
| 17 | Alessio Milivojevic | Michigan State | 28.7 | 22 | 44 | 61 | 0 |
| 18 | Jeremy Hecklinski | Iowa | 23.9 | 3 | 50 | 58 | 5 |
Figures are live as of 2 September. Chiles and Iamaleava are tied at 54.2 and listed alphabetically by school. The national quarterback board runs the same components across every conference.
| Component | Weight | What it measures |
| Performance | 35% | Stats, efficiency, team success |
| NIL Visibility | 20% | Estimated value, brands, exposure |
| Social Power | 20% | Followers, engagement, momentum |
| Fan Demand | 25% | RallyFuel searches, views, fuels |
1. Seven quarterbacks out-play Bryce Underwood. All seven finish below him.
Underwood’s Performance component is 47. That is the lowest of any Big Ten quarterback who started a full season last year. By his own conference leaderboard he ranks 33rd in QBR, 27th in interceptions and 19th in touchdowns.
He is fifth on this board.
| Performance | NIL Index | |
| Anthony Colandrea | 60 | 45.4 |
| Rocco Becht | 60 | 48.4 |
| Jayden Maiava | 59 | 43.0 |
| Josh Hoover | 58 | 47.1 |
| Demond Williams Jr. | 57 | 45.5 |
| Katin Houser | 55 | 42.6 |
| Colton Joseph | 55 | 41.1 |
| Bryce Underwood | 47 | 53.5 |
Seven out of seven, no exceptions.
Take the widest of them. Colandrea threw for 3,459 yards and 23 touchdowns; Underwood threw for 2,428 and 11. Colandrea is 4.55 points of composite ahead on Performance. Their Fan Demand is identical at 5, so that column contributes nothing at all. He loses by 8.1, because Underwood beats him 91 to 50 on Visibility and 88 to 66 on Social Power.
Hoover, with 3,472 yards and 29 touchdowns, loses by 6.4 the same way. Houser, seventh in the conference in passing, loses by 10.9.
2. Two quarterbacks arrive at the identical score from opposite ends
Aidan Chiles and Nico Iamaleava both score 54.2.
| Perf | Vis | Social | Fan | |
| Nico Iamaleava | 58 | 89 | 75 | 5 |
| Aidan Chiles | 53 | 47 | 62 | 55 |
Iamaleava is ahead by 12.75 points of composite across Performance, Visibility and Social Power combined. Chiles is ahead by 12.50 in Fan Demand alone. They land a quarter of a point apart.
One is among the most recognised quarterbacks in college football, carrying the third-highest Visibility on this board. The other is 22nd in the conference in passing yards and 24th in QBR.
Chiles’ Fan Demand of 55 comes from fifteen dollars, given by two fans, both of whom designated Michigan State. He now plays for Northwestern.
That is the whole index in two rows. Fame with no fans and fans with no fame produce the same number.
3. A perfect column and an empty one
Dante Moore leads the conference at 58.3 with an NIL Visibility of 100. It is the only perfect component we have recorded at any position, and it is what being a cover athlete on College Football 27 produces.
His Fan Demand is 0.
Against Julian Sayin he is 3.50 ahead on Performance and 4.00 ahead on Visibility, and hands back 3.75 because Sayin has 15 in the fan column and Moore has nothing. He leads the Big Ten by 3.8 points. Give him Sayin’s 15 and he leads by 7.5.
A quarterback who cannot score any higher in one column is being held to a three-point lead by the one column anyone can move.
4. The floor
Jeremy Hecklinski has thrown for eight yards in his college career. His Performance component is 3, the lowest on the board by nineteen points.
His NIL Visibility is 50, which beats seven other Big Ten starters, including Drake Lindsey, who threw for 2,382 yards and 18 touchdowns, and Katin Houser, who threw for 3,300 and 19.
Alessio Milivojevic makes the same point from just above. He threw for 1,267 yards at a 141.3 rating, 19th in the conference in QBR. He is 6.65 points of Performance clear of Hecklinski and finishes only 4.8 ahead, because Hecklinski wins the Visibility column and the fan column.
Across the sixteen quarterbacks with a full season behind them, Performance spans 34 to 63, worth 10.15 of composite. Visibility spans 39 to 100, worth 12.20. Social Power correlates with the final order more tightly than Performance does.
Three calls for 2026
Bryce Underwood finishes top two. Currently 53.5, fifth. Projected above 57. His Visibility and Social Power are already the second and first highest here. He needs one good month of football to move the only column holding him down, and he has the profile to convert it faster than anyone.
Dante Moore holds first. Currently 58.3. His Visibility cannot rise and his Performance is already the highest in the conference. What decides whether he holds is whether a single fan turns up, because his zero is the largest gap between him and a runaway lead.
Aidan Chiles falls out of the top ten. Currently third. His football components are mid-table and his fifteen dollars are more than a year old. If any of the seven quarterbacks who out-play him attract a single fan, he drops five places without doing anything wrong.
We will grade all three in December.
Learn more about the NIL landscape
What a valuation actually measures is not what this index measures. Across the Big Ten, the component that measures passing separates the full-season starters by 10.15 points. The two that measure audience separate them by more, and the one that measures fans separates almost nobody, because sixteen of eighteen have nothing in it.
Eight of these quarterbacks have a Fan Demand of exactly zero. Not one search, view or fuel. In a conference where fame is doing the sorting, that column is the only one a reader can change. Sixteen fans have out-fueled entire fanbases.
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