Hey there,

Walk into a Power Four athletic department nowadays, and it looks like an NFL front office. It’s no secret that money’s always been involved in college football, but it’s never been more openly discussed than it is today.

But NIL price tags are reaching astronomical levels. Schools and Collectives can’t simply write a check for whichever superstar wide receiver comes through their door anymore — instead, they’re being forced to identify which skills are worth spending money on.

That usually happens behind closed doors… until today. Using publicly available data, we’re going to play the role of NIL General Manager and determine what type of wide receiver is worth paying top dollar for. You won’t want to miss it.

Oh, and if you like this story, make sure to subscribe to NIL Wire All Access. After today, these deep dive stories will only be available to All-Access subscribers, so get in while it’s still 20% off!

— Cole, Justin and Collin

Which wide receiver archetype commands the most NIL money?

College football has never looked more like the NFL than it does right now. Players aren’t just student-athletes anymore – they’re assets, and expensive ones at that. Schools are relying on players to produce week in and week out, which is why they’ve brought in professional general managers to distribute funds accordingly.

But distributing those funds is… challenging.

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Just like an NFL GM, schools are paying players relative to their impact on winning. But not every player is getting paid to do the same thing – especially at a position like wide receiver, where there are so many different ways to be dominant.

Some receivers are possession players – notching multiple catches a game and consistently sustaining drives. Others are deep threats – good for one or two explosive, momentum-swinging plays a game. And then there are touchdown machines – players who consistently find themselves waltzing into the endzone to cap off drives.

Each of these wide receiver archetypes has value, no doubt… But which archetype do teams value most? Which type of receiver do schools and NIL collectives feel most comfortable doling out thousands (or even millions) of dollars to? That’s the question we’re asking today. 

Here’s how we’re going to solve the question: First, we’ll figure out who the highest-paid receivers in college football are. Next, we’ll sort those players into archetypes—possession, deep threat, and touchdown machine. Finally, we’ll see if there are trends within those archetypes to evaluate whether one skill set gets paid more than the others. 

Make sense? Here we go.

Compiling a List

The first thing we have to do is compile a list of well-paid college receivers. Lucky for us, On3 has already done so with their NIL valuation rankings. We can just snatch the top ten wide receivers from this list for our purposes.

These 10 wideouts hold the ten highest NIL valuations in the sport, which roughly translates to their talent level considering most NIL money comes from how good they are, not endorsement deals. They are:

1. Evan Stewart, Oregon ($1.3M valuation)

2. Luther Burden III, Missouri ($769K valuation)

3. Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State ($752K valuation)

4. Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State ($751K valuation)

5. Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona ($676K valuation)

6. Isaiah Bond, Texas ($643K valuation)

7. Tre Harris, Ole Miss ($613K valuation)

8. Ryan Williams, Alabama ($587K valuation)

9. Tez Johnson, Oregon ($526K valuation)

10. Barion Brown, Kentucky ($510K valuation)

Archetypes, Explained

I laid out three general wide receiver archetypes above, and we’re going to sort each player into an archetype based on their statistical profile. Here are those archetypes:

Possession Receivers are a stable presence. They’ll usually log high catch numbers – sometimes up to ten in a game – because of their ability to consistently get open. They sustain drives down the field and just keep the ball moving forward. Consistency, consistency, consistency.

Deep Threats stretch the defense with their ability to make big plays down the field. They’ll usually have high yards-per-catch metrics, which measure big-play ability quite well. When they’re not catching balls, deep threats are also forcing the defense to commit more attention to the threat of a deep ball – a valuable skill, even if not statistically measurable. 

Touchdown Machines just always seem to be scoring. They may be quiet for long stretches of the game, but once they enter the red zone, they come alive. Usually, the QB trusts this guy to beat his man one-on-one and make a play when it matters most. 

So… Who’s Who?

I dove into each of these ten players’ statistical profiles, then sorted them into each of these buckets. Here’s where everyone landed:

1. Evan Stewart is a deep threat. Sure, he can do just about anything, but Stewart put up elite production on deep balls last year despite being hampered by A&M’s rotating QB room. PFF gave him a 96.1 grade when he’s targeted past 20+ yards, and he scored three of his four touchdowns on deep balls. 

2.  Luther Burden III is a deep threat. Despite having one of the best short-to-intermediate profiles in the country, Burden is most deadly once he gets behind the defense. He logged a 99.9 PFF grade on deep balls – tied for best in the country with one other person on this list. 

3. Jeremiah Smith is a touchdown machine. He hasn’t played a down for Ohio State yet, but the superstar freshman dominated the high school ranks thanks to his massive frame (6’3, 200 pounds) and bully-ball ability. He caught 58 passes his junior year, 20 of which were touchdowns.

4. Emeka Egbuka is a possession receiver. In 2022, Egbuka netted ten receiving touchdowns, but last season, the number dropped to four. That didn’t stop him from getting open in the middle of the field seemingly every play, though. If he’s able to match his yardage total from 2022 – 1150 – he’ll become Ohio State’s all-time receiving leader.

5. Tetairoa McMillan is a touchdown machine. His freshman year, he caught eight touchdowns… and that number increased to ten by his sophomore year. He’s certainly got the deep ball chops, and he netted 90 catches last season… but his ability to body his man in the red zone is what plants him firmly in the TD monster category.

6. Isaiah Bond is a deep threat. The former ‘Bama playmaker caught seven deep balls last year, and four of them went for touchdowns. Those seven receptions turned into 251 yards – that’s nearly thirty-six yards per reception! Texas could be a clunky fit for Bond, however – QB Quinn Ewers only threw 20+ yards on 11.8% of his throws last year.

7. Tre Harris is a deep threat. A beneficiary from Lane Kiffin’s high-octane attack, PFF graded Harris 99.9 in attempts past 20+ yards. That’s, well… basically perfect. His efficiency slowly tails off the shorter the pass becomes – only one of his eight touchdowns last year came from less than 10 yards from the line of scrimmage. 

8. Ryan Williams is a deep threat. Joining Jeremiah Smith as the only other freshman in the top ten, Williams runs a 10.49 100-meter dash and is a “legitimate state title contender in four track events - the 100, 200, 400 meters and high jump,” according to On3. He’s only 160 pounds right now, but his speed allows him to get behind defenses with ease – drawing comparisons to past Alabama wideouts like Jameson Williams.

9. Tez Johnson is a possession receiver. He’ll benefit from Oregon’s newest edition – Evan Stewart – as he’ll get even more looks underneath. About 68% of Johnson’s targets came either behind the line of scrimmage or in the 0-9 yard range. In other words, he’s a third-and-four savant.  

10. Barion Brown is a possession receiver. He’s not just a receiver, though – Kentucky slotted him as a running back twelve times last season, where he racked up 147 rushing yards. Think of Brown as a Deebo-Samuel-type player – whether they need a pass over the middle or a run to the outside, Brown is the guy for it.

Deep Balls pay Bills

Okay, so if you were counting, we had three possession receivers, five deep threats, and two touchdown machines. In other words, half of the country’s highest-paid receivers are deep threats. 

But wait – it doesn’t stop there. Regardless of archetype, basically every one of these receivers is an elite deep threat, regardless of their archetype.

Tetairoa McMillan’s production makes him a TD machine, for example, but he still logged a 98.0 grade on deep balls per PFF. Tez Johnson is a possession receiver but came in at 94.6 on deep ball grade. Even Emeka Egbuka, who graded lower on deep balls than anyone else on the list, was still comfortably above the average with a 72.4 PFF grade.

What can we take away from this data, then? A couple of things, I think.

Firstly: I’ve been asking the wrong question by framing it in terms of “archetype.” Instead of looking at the general trend of a player’s production, I should have looked at certain skills that all of them possess. That skill was the key to their shared value – deep ball effectiveness.

Secondly: Why are deep threats getting paid so much more NIL money in college football? I have theories, but I’m not sure they’re worth zipping through right now. However, if you subscribe to NIL Wire Premium, we’ll be doing a deep dive on that topic, and more, in the near future.  

Thanks to Sports Reference and Pro Football Focus for their stats that made this deep dive possible. If you like stories like this, consider subscribing to NIL Wire All-Access, where we’re delivering original content like this twice a week in addition to news updates, interviews, and more.