College Football's Biggest NIL Value Movers This Week

NC State quarterback CJ Bailey posted the largest dollar decline in this week's termiNIL snapshot, down 45.4% to a modeled $1.53 million after carrying a D grade (36). On the other side of the ledger, Texas A&M cornerback Dezz Ricks posted the sharpest reversal of anyone termiNIL tracks, up 150.3% to $811K. Both numbers come from the same comparison window, Oct. 6 to Oct. 14, 2026, across the 3,864 players termiNIL revalued in that span.

This week's list is filtered before it's ranked. Players with no performance grade swing in large, uniform percentages when their depth-chart role changes — the model's role multiplier is quantized, so a backup dropping from second string to third string loses value in a fixed band no matter who they are. That is a real part of how termiNIL prices depth, but it is not a market story, so every player below carries a grade, and the swing is a graded one.

Who Lost the Most NIL Value This Week?

Eight of these ten already carried a D grade or worse heading into this snapshot — Bailey, Denegal, Veltkamp, Zollers, Wilson, Locklear (an F at 9), Tibbs, and Lovett all lost between 32% and 67% of an already-discounted value. Carter Pabst and Braden Streeter are the exceptions: both carry a passable grade (C+ and C), and their steep drops line up with a depth-chart move within their own role tier rather than a grade collapse.

Who Gained the Most NIL Value This Week?

Dezz Ricks, Adrian Wilson, and Fred Johnson are the three biggest percentage gainers on this list, and all three are defensive players who gained between 97% and 150% off a small base value on the strength of a high grade — Wilson carries an A+ (99), Johnson a B+ (88). The established starting quarterbacks on this list — Leavitt, Joseph, Daniels, Pribula, Barnett — gained far less in percentage terms, 8% to 20%, but each of those points is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars because they started from a multi-million-dollar base.

Why Are Quarterbacks Dominating Both Lists?

Thirteen of the 20 largest graded dollar swings this week belong to quarterbacks: seven of the ten biggest gains (Lopez, Barnett, Leavitt, Pribula, Daniels, Joseph, Odom) and six of the ten biggest losses (Bailey, Denegal, Veltkamp, Zollers, Locklear, Streeter). No other position comes close to that share on either side. Quarterback is where termiNIL's model concentrates its highest valuations, so a grade swing that would move a few hundred thousand dollars at another position moves a million or more at quarterback — the position isn't more volatile, its dollars just carry more weight per point of grade.

Does termiNIL Leave Any Valuations Out of This Comparison?

Yes, on purpose. termiNIL's audit process currently holds 234 players out of rankings and blog callouts entirely because their pricing looks implausible on its face. Separately, 154 audit-flagged players are excluded from this week's movers comparison specifically, and every ungraded player is excluded from the lists above for the depth-chart reason explained up top. None of the 20 players named in this post are on the audit-excluded list.

How Big Is the College Football NIL Market Right Now?

termiNIL prices 15,090 players across 138 programs for a combined market of $3.27B, with a $101K median valuation and 473 players above $1 million. That market total reflects every tracked player, including the ones excluded from rankings and from this list, because an aggregate has to match what the site shows everywhere else even when individual rows don't.

Check any player's current valuation, grade, and confidence level in the termiNIL terminal, or read how NIL valuations are calculated for the full methodology behind these numbers. For the prior snapshot, see the Oct. 1 movers report.

Keep reading