The Most Valuable Offensive Tackles in College Football, Ranked

Offensive tackle is the position NIL discourse mostly skips. It has no stat line to screenshot, no highlight reel that explains the number, and the players who do it best are frequently the ones nobody outside the program notices. That makes it a useful test of a model that prices every FBS player the same way: performance grade, depth chart role, recruiting profile and social following, with no stat-line shortcut to lean on.

termiNIL runs that model across all 1,109 scholarship tackles in FBS. This post ranks the leaders, checks how tackle's total dollars stack up against the rest of the offensive line, and flags the one result in the top 25 that doesn't look like the others.

The short version: tackle is the best-paid line position in the model by a wide margin, its value is spread more evenly than most skill positions, the SEC builds the deepest rooms of them — and the single most valuable tackle in the country is a true freshman backup with the lowest grade of anyone on the list.

Who are the most valuable offensive tackles in college football?

Carter Smith carries a perfect 100 grade, Jordan Seaton and Trevor Lauck both sit at 99 — all three are the kind of graded, high-confidence valuations this model is built to produce. Rogers at the top of the list is not: a true freshman backup (depth=2) with a 26 grade, a D, and termiNIL's "low confidence" tag, the only one in this top 25. Every figure here is live and checkable in the termiNIL terminal; the audit currently holds 11 tackles out of this list for carrying rich raw values with no performance grade or reliable snap count behind them — including Texas Tech's Felix Ojo, whose raw $1.327M value is higher than any tackle who actually appears above.

How does offensive tackle compare to the rest of the offensive line in total NIL value?

It's the richest line position termiNIL prices. Tackle's $150.29M total leads offensive guard's $109.02M by 1.38x and center's $50.60M by nearly 3x — even though tackle (1,109 players) and guard (1,059 players) carry almost identical roster counts. Tackle also edges out tight end's $116.45M, despite tight end logging more receiving-stat visibility. Across all fifteen positions termiNIL prices, tackle's total ranks ninth — behind running back's $177.69M and ahead of tight end — and its $135,519 average value sits below the market-wide mean of $216,828 across all 15,090 FBS players the model prices.

Is offensive tackle NIL value concentrated at the top, or spread out?

Closer to spread out than most positions. Tackle's average value of $135,519 is 1.43x its $95,000 median — flatter than running back's 1.76x or tight end's 1.72x, and nearly identical to fellow lineman offensive guard's 1.39x. The same holds further up the distribution: tackle's 90th-percentile value of $292,000 is 3.07x its median, between center's 2.82x and guard's 3.31x. Of the three line positions termiNIL prices, center is the flattest and guard the most top-heavy, with tackle sitting in between on both measures.

Which conference and teams produce the most valuable offensive tackles?

The SEC, clearly. It places 10 of termiNIL's top 25 tackles, ahead of the ACC's 6 and the Big Ten's 5; the Big 12 places 3 (Texas Tech twice, BYU once) and independent Notre Dame places 1. Texas A&M, Texas and Texas Tech are the only programs with two tackles apiece in the top 25 — Rogers and Wilkin Formby for Texas A&M, Trevor Goosby and Melvin Siani for Texas, Howard Sampson and Jacob Ponton for Texas Tech. Every other program in the top 25 places exactly one.

Depth chart role is nearly absolute here: 24 of these 25 tackles are listed starters. The lone exception is the position's single most valuable player.

Why is a true freshman backup the most valuable tackle in the country?

termiNIL's model doesn't price performance grade alone — it combines grade with depth chart role, recruiting profile and social following, and for Lamont Rogers the latter three are carrying a $999,000 valuation that his 26 grade would not support on its own. He's the only low-confidence valuation in the top 25, which is the model's own flag that this number rests on thinner inputs than Carter Smith's or Jordan Seaton's. That's a modeled estimate, not a claim that a true freshman backup has outplayed the starters ranked beneath him — see how termiNIL's confidence tiers work for what low confidence does and doesn't mean.

Every number here reprices as grades update and depth charts move, and the audit holding those 11 tackles out of this list runs fresh with every model update. Check the full tackle depth chart in the termiNIL terminal, or see how the valuation model works.

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