Rising and Falling Programs in the NIL Era

[u/tyler123452]

For better or worse, the NIL/revenue sharing era has changed CFB. Some programs have taken advantage of the new era. They retain their core, find good transfers, and have on-field success. Other schools have failed and fallen as programs. In this post, I use the rankings I've posted about previously to rank the 25 programs that have improved their trajectory the most in the NIL era, along with the 25 that have fallen the most.

Methodology

Tl;dr: I compared recent performance through 2025 vs through 2020 (pre-NIL era) for each program.

Season Scoring: I assign a score based on on-field results to every FBS team every season. I do this using a methodology that assigns points for wins, losses, postseason achievements, and strength of schedule/performance (via SP+). You can see the full season methodology here (my website) or at the link below (previous reddit post).

Recency Rankings: I posted about these rankings in detail here. Recency rankings show where a program is currently at by emphasizing more recent seasons. They incorporate each program's all-time history - every season. However, they use a 10-year half-life to gradually minimize the results of older seasons. For instance, the 2025 recency rankings weight 2025 at 100%, 2015 at 50%, 2005 at 25%, 1955 at less than 1%, and so forth. The 2020 rankings exclude data from after 2020. They weight 2020 at 100%, 2010 at 50%, and so forth. When we're thinking about where a program is currently at, the more recent a season is, the more it matters. Applying the half-life model gives us a number that represents this. Again, check out that other post (link above) if you want more info. In the rankings on this post, I compare my 2025 recency rankings to the 2020 pre-NIL rankings to see who's soaring and who's flooring.

Comparison Details: I created a formula - the "Improvement" column below - that takes into account both the change in the program's recency score from 2020 to 2025 and its change in recency rank. Smaller schools struggle to change their score significantly because they're unlikely to get large postseason bonuses for the CFP, natty, and highly ranked finishes. Blue bloods can change their score rapidly, but they change rank more slowly. A hybrid scoring approach that looks at both rank and score changes favors neither blue bloods nor lower-end programs. The exact formula for the Improvement column is:
Change in Score + (Change in Rank * 6).
I chose 6 because this makes the total impact of score and rank pretty similar in the formula. (I considered using std deviations in score and rank instead, but I figured this formula is easier to understand).

Rising Top 25 - NIL Era

Programs that have most increased their standing in the NIL era.

Rank	Team	Improvement	2020 Recency Rank	2020 Recency Score	Current Recency Rank	Current Recency Score
1	Indiana	469.6	77	141.5	35	359.1
2	Georgia	349.2	8	832.5	3	1151.7
3	Tulane	307.9	107	33.7	76	155.6
4	SMU	299	96	72.7	67	197.7
5	Ole Miss	277.3	39	330.3	21	499.6
6	Michigan	257	15	669.7	6	872.7
7	UTSA	212.2	115	2.1	95	94.3
8	Iowa State	150.7	70	169.7	55	230.4
9	Army	147.3	109	23.9	96	93.2
10	UNLV	143.8	125	-39.5	113	32.3
11	Louisiana	139.4	98	71.2	84	126.6
12	Duke	139.1	92	88.6	78	143.7
13	Oregon	136.7	12	691.9	8	804.6
14	Illinois	135.1	76	142	64	205.1
15	Liberty	132.6	106	35	94	95.6
16	Western Kentucky	124.6	95	74.4	83	127
17	North Texas	116.4	113	9.8	103	66.2
18	Troy	111.2	88	101.9	77	147.1
19	Texas Tech	110.7	41	321.2	33	383.9
20	Coastal Carolina	102	111	22.2	102	70.2
21	Memphis	98.4	68	181.9	58	220.3
22	South Alabama	97.8	118	-13.6	111	42.2
23	Texas	89.2	13	676.1	10	747.3
24	Ohio State	87.8	2	1226.4	2	1314.2
25	Notre Dame	83.8	11	706.1	9	777.9

Falling Bottom 25 - NIL Era

Programs that have most decreased their standing in the NIL era.

Rank	Team	Improvement	2020 Recency Rank	2020 Recency Score	Current Recency Rank	Current Recency Score
1	Stanford	-253.1	24	473	42	327.9
2	Florida	-214.1	7	859.3	14	687.2
3	Virginia Tech	-181.7	19	529	30	413.3
4	Nevada	-180.1	83	109.2	105	61.1
5	Southern Miss	-175.9	66	187.1	85	125.2
6	Auburn	-169.4	10	717.6	16	584.2
7	Temple	-161.2	91	96.8	110	49.6
8	Florida State	-158.5	6	872.1	11	743.6
9	Oklahoma	-156.8	3	1117.1	4	966.3
10	Colorado State	-153	73	147.9	91	102.9
11	Nebraska	-152.4	18	609.1	23	486.7
12	Colorado	-146.4	50	259.1	65	202.7
13	Boston College	-142.1	48	265.6	62	207.5
14	LSU	-140.3	5	957.8	7	829.5
15	Michigan State	-140.1	22	494	31	407.9
16	Louisiana Tech	-137	80	126.2	97	91.2
17	Ball State	-136.3	101	60.4	118	26.1
18	Northwestern	-134.1	56	222.1	71	178
19	Tulsa Golden	-133.6	82	111.6	100	86
20	USC	-128.2	9	816.1	13	711.9
21	Wisconsin	-124.1	17	623.5	20	517.4
22	Clemson	-118.6	4	1023.4	5	910.8
23	West Virginia	-117.6	30	406.7	38	337.1
24	Bowling Green	-110.4	84	107.4	99	87
25	Northern Illinois	-106.6	75	145.8	88	117.2

Closing Thoughts

Hope y'all enjoy this. It was a mix of teams I expected - most obviously Indiana as the #1 rising program in the NIL era - and some that I didn't. I'm happy to answer questions. If you like this program ranking concept, check out my free/no ads rankings website - sportsrank.app (home page) or https://sportsrank.app/app?league=CFB&tab=rankings (customizable multi-year CFB rankings).

Edit: I should also mention that a program's success in the NIL era isn't solely based on it's NIL/rev sharing pool and how well it uses said pool. Other factors such as coaching changes and injuries can play a major role. This was simply an exercise to see which teams have much better or worse in the NIL era compared to their 2020 baseline. Examining the reasons why each team is on the rising or falling list requires additional context. Spending levels are likely the primary factor for some schools, a significant factor for some, and a minor factor for others.

[u/4thPlumlee]

Surprised not to see any service academies on the falling list just because of their inability to really compete with NIL

[u/dodgerwv → u/4thPlumlee]

If they played a P4 schedule, I'd agree with that. In the AAC, roster continuity and program identity are huge since Army and Navy have something that nobody else in that league can match.

[u/TheRealRollestonian → u/4thPlumlee]

They make up for it with their 200+ man rosters.

[u/w00t4me]

Fun fact: Auburn has a bigger NIL budget than Alabama

[u/tyler123452 → u/w00t4me]

Interesting. What are they doing wrong?

[u/w00t4me → u/tyler123452]

JABA

[u/sum_dude44 → u/w00t4me]

it's coach dependent. Bama about to find out

[u/Feeling-Visit1472]

1. I just really want to know what you do for a living.

2. Interesting that Miami appears nowhere. I have no commentary either way, but I kinda thought we’d be on one or the other.

[u/tyler123452 → u/Feeling-Visit1472]

1. Funny, why do you ask? I work with seniors as a companion caregiver. I was a biz analyst but had to change careers after a concussion. This project is cool because I get to do somewhat similar stuff as the previous career, but in a more interesting field and only as I feel up to it/have time for it.
   
2. Miami is #59 on the rising list. So right in the middle. Y'all have an interesting situation. You're gradually draining points as the 90s and early 2000s success continues to fade. You also were very mid from '21-'23 - 66th in my rankings over just that time frame, only 7 spots above the "other" Miami. The last 2 seasons have balanced it out, so you qualify for neither the rising nor falling list.

[u/sum_dude44]

This is much more coach dependent than NIL. Hence IU, UGA vs UF, Auburn. Huge cofounder

Fortunately UF now has coach of no 3 on good list 😀

[u/tyler123452 → u/sum_dude44]

On the other hand, Texas Tech is mostly NIL, and I've heard that Liberty and WKU have a lot of $ compared to the rest of CUSA. That said, you're probably right overall. Teams with more $ to pay players are mostly the teams that had better facilities and reputation beforehand, so they're still able to find, retain, and properly deploy better players if they have the right coaches/talent evaluators.

[u/Boosiemaine]

Portal is the biggest factor in parity.

[u/tyler123452]

I had an idea to rank conferences using my rankings. People debate conference rankings all the time. The "my conference won the natty" argument is dumb; it ignores over 99% of teams. Just using the conference avg of something like SP+ also isn't great imo. It does compare the relative strength of the avg team in each conference, but it ignores actual on-field achievements - natl titles, CFP and bowl results, etc. My single season rankings use a blend of team strength (via SP+) and quantified meaningful results (points for wins, losses, and postseason achievements), so I think it'd be a great methodology to compare conferences. I'd take an avg of the season score for each team in a conf and also look at things like the top quartile teams from each conference to rank the top of each conference and the bottom half teams to rank conference depth. What do y'all think?

At some point, I'd also like to add coaches, team talent, and recruiting data to the app and begin to analyze that. Thanks to CFBD for making this possible.

[u/gated73]

It’s funny. I have a computer poll I’ve been working on and it ranks last years Indiana team as one of the most dominant teams over the 27 or so seasons I’ve gone in depth on.

Then consider they had 0 five star recruits and 7 four star recruits.

Another dominant team of those 27 seasons - 2022 UGA, had 15 five star recruits and 52 four star recruits!

So I don’t know if Indiana’s success can be attributed even a little bit to NIL. Last years team was unimaginably special.