The Big 10 and SEC have just passed policies that once again exclude 2022 high school graduates from playing college sports 5 years in a 5 year span. It is under the guise of not letting professional athletes have the opportunity to return to the college ranks. Several players who were attempting to but, were not likely to make NFL rosters and who also were not given time to take advantage of the NCAA 5-for-5 rule that came out in June, sued and won in a Louisiana court to have a fair shot at a 5th year of college football even though they had attempted to continue playing football in the NFL. When those players chose the NFL, they were faced with either not playing football or trying to play in the NFL. Two of these players had played for Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss and Lane snapped them up. Lane, who has been a villain since the time he literally ducked out of Tennessee for a better football opportunity at USC, is also the villain of this story. While Kiffin is an easy target, "justice" and "fairness" for the 2022 high school grads is being ignored. Not one of the players has played a single NFL professional down and what kind of standard is it anyway to not allow "professional athletes" to play in the SEC or Big 10? I thought with NIL we had already crossed that bridge.
We do not just have paid players in the SEC and Big 10, we have highly compensated players.
I asked Grok to provide me with a list of the highest compensated players currently on each Big 10 and SEC team. Grok examined 123 sources and reported these numbers.
These are estimated 2026 market values, not leaked contracts. Schools do not publish player pay. The figures below are from [The NIL Standard](https://thenilstandard.com/football/teams) (late August 2026), which prices every rostered player from production, draft projection, position market, and reported deals.
On3 (the usual media NIL ranking) is a different model — more brand/social than roster-market. It matches TNS on several stars (Jeremiah Smith, Dante Moore, Jordan Seaton, Josh Hoover, Bryce Underwood) but disagrees sharply on Arch Manning: TNS still has him at $6.80M; On3 had him around $2.5M in July after a down 2025. Trinidad Chambliss and Sam Leavitt are $5.0M / $4.5M on On3 vs $6.0M on TNS.
Ties are marked.
SEC notes:
- Texas, LSU, Ole Miss are in a different tier. Manning, Leavitt, and Chambliss are the three highest-valued football players in either conference on this board.
- LSU is the only SEC team with two players at $4M+. Seaton is the highest-paid offensive lineman in the country (~$4M; CBS reporting put his market even higher).
- Tennessee is the rare Power 4 roster whose top earner is a tackle (Sanders), not the QB.
- Ryan Coleman-Williams is the former Ryan Williams; he changed his name and number for 2026.
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