The receiver who did not play outranks the one who led the country

Danny Scudero caught 88 passes for 1,297 yards in 2025. Nobody in college football gained more.

Evan Stewart did not play in 2025. His last full season was 2024, when he caught 48 passes for 613 yards.

Scudero scores 34.1 on the NIL Index. Stewart scores 48.3.

That is not an error, and it is the most useful thing on this board.

The board

All sixteen wide receivers we track, with the four components behind each score.

The four components of the NIL Index are published in full:

Performance is not a rounding error here. Across the fifteen receivers who played, it runs from 33 to 53, a twenty point range worth 7.0 points of composite. That is real, and it separates plenty of this board. It is also not a yardage leaderboard. Efficiency and team success are in the definition alongside raw stats, which is why a receiver can lead the country in catches and still trail on the component.

But it is the smallest of the three levers that matter. Visibility runs from 37 to 85, and at a fifth of the weighting that range is worth 9.6. Fan Demand runs from 0 to 40, and at a quarter it is worth 10.0. The heaviest component on paper moves this board the least of the three.

Sort that table by receiving yards and the order barely resembles the one above. Here is what actually separates them.

1. Reach separates this board more than production does

Stewart and Scudero have identical Performance components, 40 apiece. That is the striking part on its own: Scudero gained 1,297 yards in the season just finished, Stewart gained 613 two years ago, and the model rates them the same.

The fourteen point gap between their scores comes from elsewhere entirely. Visibility 85 against 39. Social Power 80 against 55.

Scudero led the nation in receiving yards at San Jose State. Stewart has 2.1 million TikTok followers and plays for Oregon. The model was built to reward the second thing more heavily, and it does.

Amare Thomas makes the point from the other end. He scored twelve touchdowns for Houston, level with Jeremiah Smith for the most here, and his Performance component of 43 is the fourth highest. He ranks fourteenth of sixteen, on a Visibility of 40.

Compare him to Charlie Becker, who is tied with Mario Craver for the lowest Performance score of any receiver who played, at 33, and sits third overall. Ten points of Performance in Thomas’s favour, sixteen points of composite in Becker’s.

2. Never playing is worth almost as much as a top three season

Chris Henry Jr. is an incoming Ohio State freshman who has never caught a college pass. His Performance component is exactly 0.

Wyatt Young was third nationally in receiving yards with 1,264 at North Texas.

Young scores 30.8. Henry scores 29.4.

A season that put a receiver in the national top three is worth 1.4 points more than never having played, because Henry carries a Visibility of 75 and a Social Power of 72 on recruiting profile and name recognition alone.

3. The engagement column outweighs the audience column

Four receivers on this board have a Fan Demand above 5. They are the top four. The column counts searches, views and fuels, so a receiver can register in it without anyone having spent a cent — but the two largest figures here both belong to receivers somebody has backed.

Coleman-Williams leads on three components of four, and by a serious margin. Nine points of Performance, nine of Visibility, fourteen of Social Power. Add those up and he is 7.75 points of composite ahead before the last column.

Becker finishes ahead anyway, because Fan Demand of 40 against 0 is worth ten points on its own. One column, weighted at a quarter, overturns a lead built across the other three.

Cam Coleman is the same story smaller. A single fan’s engagement gives him a Fan Demand of 25, and he sits fourth.

Fan Demand is a quarter of the score, and it measures engagement on the platform rather than anything that happens on a field. Twelve of these sixteen receivers are sitting at 5 or below in it.

Four calls for 2026

Malachi Toney finishes number one

Currently 53.3, second. Projected: above 58.

Toney sits one point behind Jeremiah Smith and already leads him on Visibility, 85 to 75. Smith’s Social Power of 85 is the highest figure on this board and has nowhere left to go. His Performance of 53 is also the highest here, and that one could still rise: his 2025 was a step back from his freshman year in yards, touchdowns and yards per catch, and he missed time.

That is the point, though. Performance is worth 7.0 points of separation across this board and Smith is already at the top of it, so a recovery season moves him a little. The column with room in it is Fan Demand, where he sits at 15 out of a possible 40 on this board, and that one is not decided on a field.

The seven point Performance gap between them is not a workload gap either. Toney caught 109 passes to Smith’s 87 and still finished 32 yards behind him, 1,211 to 1,243, at 11.1 a reception against 14.3. He already has the targets. What has to move is what he does with them, and Miami is positioned for exactly that, with Toney on the cover of College Football 27 and catching passes this season from Darian Mensah, who threw for 3,973 yards and 34 touchdowns at Duke.

Danny Scudero is the biggest riser on the board

Currently 34.1, thirteenth. Projected: above 45.

A Visibility of 39 is what a season at San Jose State produces, not a judgment on the player. He now plays for Colorado, the most heavily covered program in the sport relative to its record, and that single component is worth more to him than another thousand yards would be. His Performance of 40 already matches Evan Stewart’s, who sits eight places above him on reach alone.

Wyatt Young is the most underrated receiver in college football

Currently 30.8, fifteenth. Projected: above 40.

Young finished third in the nation in receiving yards and sits second from bottom here, carrying the lowest Visibility of any receiver on the board at 37. Oklahoma State hired his North Texas head coach and brought his quarterback with him, so he arrives in the Big 12 inside an offense he already knows. Nothing about the football has to change for that number to move.

KJ Duff closes the gap on his tape

Currently 35.5, twelfth. Projected: above 42.

Duff led all Power 4 receivers in contested catches and finished tenth nationally in receiving yards, which makes his position on this board the hardest to explain by tape alone. Visibility is not the culprit: his 54 beats five receivers here, including both of the risers above him. The drag is a Fan Demand of 0 and the third lowest Social Power on the board. Rutgers accounts for the second, and September’s visit from USC on CBS is where that starts to move. The first is not a football problem at all.

We will grade all four in December.

Learn More About the NIL Landscape

Name, Image and Likeness now shapes college football as much as recruiting or the portal does, and this board is one way of seeing how. Roughly a third of a receiver’s score is what he did on a field. The rest is audience, reach, and one column that measures what happens on the platform itself.

That column is a quarter of the score, and on this board it is nearly empty. Twelve of these sixteen receivers sit at 5 or below in it. Charlie Becker is third overall with the lowest Performance figure of any receiver here who played, and Ryan Coleman-Williams is sixth with a bigger audience, a bigger brand and a better season.

Fan Demand is the difference, and it is the one component that comes from outside the sport. Fueling an athlete is a purchase of conditional NIL engagement rights, not a donation — the terms and refund conditions are posted at checkout.

👉 Explore the Athletes on RallyFuel. Compare scores component by component and see what the board looks like from the inside.