Two 9-4 teams, seven places apart on the NIL Index. Football explains one point of it.

USC and Washington both finished 9-4 in 2025. On the Football NIL Index, USC sits at 26.1, fourth nationally. Washington sits at 19.7, eleventh.

Of the 6.4 points between them, the component that measures football accounts for about one.

The game

How the NIL Index is built

Four components, published weights, each drawn from a different place.

Weight those four and you get a Team NIL Score, a 0 to 100 rating of a program’s NIL momentum. USC’s 26.1 ranks fourth nationally. Washington’s 19.7 ranks eleventh.

The same model runs at athlete level, and it drives the Heisman NIL Power Rankings inside the NIL Trophy Case, where USC has its own entry: Caleb Williams, the 2022 winner. Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza tops the current board at 61.5 after a Heisman season and a national title. Against that ceiling, Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr. rates 21.2 and USC running back King Miller rates 10.5. The Big Ten is the top ranked conference on the platform, with 8,171 athletes listed.

Social Power alone is more than half the gap

Multiply each component gap by its weight and the 6.4 points break down like this:

Performance carries more weight than any other single component, and contributes the smallest share of the separation. Social Power, weighted at a fifth, moves this matchup three times as hard as the entire on field difference between the two seasons.

That is the model working as intended. Two teams with the same record should sit close on a column that measures results, and they do.

The identical records hide two different seasons

USC scored 132 more points across the same thirteen games. Washington had the better defense and was more careful with the ball. USC did not lose a home game all season, and every regular season loss came away from Los Angeles, where the Trojans went 2-3, a worse road record than the team they are hosting.

Three points of Performance is a fair reading of that. It is worth 1.05 points of composite. The two reach columns are worth 5.60 between them.

Why the reach columns look the way they do

NIL Visibility tracks estimated NIL deal value, brand partnerships, and media exposure. Social Power tracks followers, engagement, and growth. Between them they approximate what the glossary calls a personal brand. Athletic achievement feeds into that, but the other inputs are largely inherited from where an athlete plays.

Ticket demand tells the same story. Here are both 2026 home schedules by cheapest available ticket:

The clearest measure of what these columns track is on USC’s own schedule. On September 12 the Trojans host Louisiana, and the two athletic departments are not playing the same sport financially. USC drew roughly $78 million from the Big Ten last year. Louisiana drew roughly $1.7 million from the Sun Belt. Forty five times the money, one afternoon at the Coliseum, and none of it decided by either roster.

The one column that comes from outside the sport

Fan Demand is 25% of the NIL Score, and it is the only column that does not repeat what college football already believes.

The other three are imported from the wider sport. Box scores describe a season that already finished. Follower counts and deal values describe a reputation that took years to build. All three are records of what has happened.

Fan Demand is the live one. It is built entirely from RallyFuel’s own data, and it moves in days rather than seasons, which is why the Index reads as momentum rather than as a résumé. Both programs sitting at 1 in August says something about the calendar rather than about either fanbase: before a snap has been played, the Index is reading USC and Washington almost entirely on their history. That changes on August 29.

One more number to watch: the October 3 television window is still unassigned, while every USC game through September 19 already has a start time and a network. Whichever network lands it moves the Visibility column for both programs more than a close result moves either Performance column.

What we expect on October 3

Washington is far more likely to stay competitive than most people will assume in August, and the reason is the defense. The Huskies allowed 18.7 points a game, fifteenth nationally, and finished +5 in turnover margin. Against an offense that averaged 44.2, those are the numbers that matter most.

Three things point the other way, and they compound. USC went 7-0 at the Coliseum and lost every regular season game it played elsewhere. This is Washington’s first road trip of 2026, after four straight at home. And USC’s 7-2 conference record against Washington’s 5-4 says that offense travelled inside the Big Ten rather than feasting on the nonconference slate.

So the case for USC is structural rather than sentimental. Washington has the defense and the quarterback in Demond Williams Jr. to make an upset a real possibility rather than a hopeful one. They just have to do it somewhere USC has not been beaten.

What the gap actually says

Two teams finished 9-4. One sits fourth nationally and the other eleventh, and almost none of that distance is about football.

USC’s on field advantage is worth about a point. The other five are Los Angeles, a century of Trojans, and a stadium that has hosted two Olympic Games and will host a third. Washington cannot touch any of it by winning on October 3.

That is not a flaw in the model. It is the model doing something a scoreboard cannot. A record tells you how a season went. The NIL Score tells you what that season is worth to the people who played it, and those two numbers were never going to agree. USC hosts Louisiana in September with forty five times Louisiana’s conference money, and both teams still walk onto the same grass.

The scoreboard resets every Saturday. The other number does not.

About the NIL Index

The NIL Index is a measure of NIL momentum rather than a power ranking, which is why two teams with the same record can sit seven places apart. The expectations above come from the football, not from the Index. Rosters also move between seasons, and every component score is a snapshot that shifts as the year goes. The Transfer Tracker follows that movement.

Fueling an athlete on RallyFuel is a purchase of conditional NIL engagement rights, which convert into an NIL deal only when the stated conditions are met. It is not a donation, and it is not a payment for athletic performance. Terms and refund conditions are posted at checkout. 90% reaches the athlete.

👉 See how every component is defined · NIL Trophy Case · Compare USC and Washington · National rankings

👉 Rosters: USC · Washington

Sat, Oct 3, 2026, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Kickoff and TV window were unassigned at publication. NIL Index figures are as displayed on RallyFuel school pages for the 2025 season and will move as the season progresses. Schedules, standings, and 2025 statistics via ESPN. Starting ticket prices via SeatGeek and subject to change. Conference distributions via ProPublica filings.