For 2024, the NFL had about $23B in revenue; CFB had about $14B, or roughly 60% of the NFL's revenue. CFB has almost 4 times as many teams, but realistically, most of the revenue is in the power 5, so about twice as many revenue generators. College football's revenue is also much less evenly divided, so whereas the 32 NFL teams are all pretty close in total revenue, the college teams are really spread out, with Texas, Michigan, Ohio State, and Notre Dame having valuations north of $2B, valuation at more than $800m puts you in the top 20, and only 34 teams valued at more than $500M. Which is to say that when it comes to paying players, the top 4 programs, the top 10 programs, and the top 20 programs can all afford a lot more than everyone else. NFL valuations average about $7B. So the average NFL team is worth about 3(+)x even the wealthiest college programs. But those colleges (and probably most of the top 30) make plenty of revenue that one could expect will be used to compensate their employees.
All of that is to say that there is a cohort, where we can expect college football players to make about 1/3 or so what they might make in the NFL, but, based on the competitive dynamics, it's probably less than that. Maybe 1/4 is a more realistic assessment. The NFL, of course, also has a much more defined labor market, with much stronger rules, which will result in less total variation than we might see in the nearly unregulated college market. So the average player will make a lot more in the NFL, but the extreme college player may make a lot more relative to his other collegiate peers.
I'm no economist, so I'm sure I have a lot of this wrong, but I think it's safe to say that, generally, college players will not make NFL-level salaries (relative to their position), except in very narrow circumstances.
