Ca'Lil Valentine stats, 2026
Illinois (4–3, Big Ten). Running back. 2026 season, games through Oct 24, 2026.
Ca'Lil Valentine is a running back for Illinois (4–3). Among running backs this season he's 112th in rushing success rate (46.9%), 193rd in yards per carry (4.8), 206th in receiving yards (46), in 5 games. This week: Illinois at Maryland.
Bio
Who is Ca'Lil Valentine?
- Position
- Running back
- Class
- Junior
- Height
- 5-11
- Weight
- 200 pounds
- Number
- No. 5
- Hometown
- Hayward, CA
- High school
- Chandler (Chandler, AZ)
- Recruiting
- 4-star, No. 409 in the 2024 class
From the 2026 roster, the 247Sports recruiting composite and the transfer portal, all via CollegeFootballData.com.
The season
Ca'Lil Valentine's rushing stats
He's 193rd of 372 running backs in yards per carry (4.8) and 210th of 427 running backs in rushing yards (235).
| Stat | Season | National rank |
|---|---|---|
| Rushing yards | 235 | 210th of 427 |
| Carries | 49 | 215th of 428 |
| Yards per carry | 4.8 | 193rd of 372 |
| Rushing TDs | 1 | 293rd of 351 |
The season
Ca'Lil Valentine's rushing efficiency and big plays
He's 112th of 366 running backs in rushing success rate (46.9%) and 205th of 357 running backs in EPA per play (0.08).
| Stat | Season | National rank |
|---|---|---|
| Rushing success rate | 46.9% | 112th of 366 |
| Explosive runs (12+ yards) | 3 | 252nd of 393 |
| EPA per play | 0.08 | 205th of 357 |
The season
Ca'Lil Valentine's receiving stats
He's 206th of 392 running backs in receiving yards (46) and 294th of 395 running backs in catches (3).
| Stat | Season | National rank |
|---|---|---|
| Catches | 3 | 294th of 395 |
| Receiving yards | 46 | 206th of 392 |
Ranks are among every FBS running back with the stat this season. Rates need a minimum sample (50 dropbacks for passing rates, 20 carries, 8 catches). From the play-by-play.
Charts
How does Ca'Lil Valentine compare, in charts?
Career
Ca'Lil Valentine's career stats
| Season | Team | Carries | Rush yds | Yds/carry | Rush TD | Catches | Rec yds | Rec TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Illinois | 53 | 212 | 4.0 | 1 | 5 | 30 | 0 |
| 2025 | Illinois | 131 | 614 | 4.7 | 4 | 10 | 55 | 0 |
| 2026 | Illinois | 49 | 235 | 4.8 | 1 | 3 | 46 | 0 |
| Career | 233 | 1,061 | 4.6 | 6 | 18 | 131 | 0 |
Past seasons (back to 2022) from CollegeFootballData.com; 2026 from the play-by-play, games through Oct 24, 2026.
Advanced
Ca'Lil Valentine's advanced stats by season
| Season | Team | EPA/play | Pass EPA/play | Rush EPA/play | Rush success | Explosive runs | Explosive catches | Total EPA | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Illinois | -0.18 | -0.52 | -0.14 | 33.3% | 9.3% | — | -9.8 | 8% |
| 2025 | Illinois | -0.01 | -0.01 | -0.01 | 46.2% | 8.5% | 10.0% | -1.8 | 18% |
| 2026 | Illinois | +0.07 | +0.81 | +0.01 | 46.9% | 6.1% | — | 3.7 | 17% |
EPA per play is the expected points a player adds on each of his plays (0 is average; glossary). Success means the play stayed on schedule: half the yards to go on first down, 70% on second, all of them on third or fourth. Explosive means a run of 12+ yards or a completion of 16+, as a share of his throws, carries or catches. Usage is the share of his team's plays that went to him. EPA and usage leave out garbage time; success and explosive rates count every play. From CollegeFootballData.com and cfbfastR.
Game log
Ca'Lil Valentine's game log, 2026
| Week | Opponent | Result | Rushing yards | Carries | Rushing TDs | Explosive runs (12+ yards) | Catches |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | vs. UAB | W 42–23 | 88 | 11 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 | vs. Duke | L 27–31 | 66 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | vs. Southern Illinois | W 48–10 | 33 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | at Ohio State | L 19–42 | 47 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 5 | vs. Purdue | L 17–24 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
FAQ
Questions about Ca'Lil Valentine
What position does Ca'Lil Valentine play?
Ca'Lil Valentine plays running back for Illinois, which is 4–3 this season.
Where is Ca'Lil Valentine from, and what year is he?
Ca'Lil Valentine is a junior running back for Illinois, listed at 5-11 and 200 pounds, from Hayward, CA.
How tall is Ca'Lil Valentine, and how much does he weigh?
Ca'Lil Valentine is listed at 5-11 and 200 pounds on Illinois's 2026 roster.
What year is Ca'Lil Valentine?
Ca'Lil Valentine is a junior, from the 2024 recruiting class.
What are Ca'Lil Valentine's career stats?
Over 3 seasons (2024–2026), Ca'Lil Valentine has 1,061 rushing yards on 233 carries with 6 rushing touchdowns, plus 18 catches for 131 yards.
Who does Ca'Lil Valentine play for?
Illinois (4–3, Big Ten), where he plays running back and wears No. 5.
Is Ca'Lil Valentine eligible for the NFL Draft?
Yes. Players can enter the NFL Draft three years after high school, and Ca'Lil Valentine was in the 2024 class, so he's eligible for the 2027 draft.
Is Ca'Lil Valentine injured?
Illinois's latest report lists Ca'Lil Valentine as out.
How did Ca'Lil Valentine play in his last game?
Week 5 vs. Purdue: 1 rushing yards, 2 carries. Illinois lost 17–24.
Where did Ca'Lil Valentine go to high school?
Chandler (Chandler, AZ). He was a 4-star recruit, No. 409 in the 2024 class.
What are Ca'Lil Valentine's stats this season?
235 rushing yards, 49 carries, 4.8 yards per carry, 1 rushing TDs, 46.9% rushing success rate in 5 games, through Oct 24, 2026.
How does Ca'Lil Valentine rank nationally?
Among FBS running backs: 112th of 366 in rushing success rate, 193rd of 372 in yards per carry, 206th of 392 in receiving yards.
When does Ca'Lil Valentine play next?
Illinois visits Maryland Sat, Oct 31, 12:00 PM ET on FS1. The numbers' pick: Illinois.
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College football, 2026 season
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Everything on this site starts with someone else's data, and we credit all of it. The projections, picks, rankings and tiers are our own math on top.
Where the data comes from
| Source | What we use | How often |
|---|---|---|
| CollegeFootballData.com, via the public cfbfastR files | Schedules, final scores, pregame Elo, play-by-play and box score stats, rosters | Usually posted Sunday or Monday morning after games |
| DraftKings lines (via The Odds API and CollegeFootballData.com) | The line and total on each game, and where each opened | Every morning, and before kickoffs Thursday to Saturday |
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| 247Sports | Team talent composite, star counts, 2026 transfer portal rankings | Preseason |
| The NIL Standard | Estimated NIL roster values | Preseason |
| us-atlas (U.S. Census Bureau boundaries) | State shapes for the map | Once |
How we turn it into projections
- Projected score. Each team's SP+ offense, plus how far the opponent's SP+ defense is from average, plus special teams. The home team gets half of a 2.5-point home edge added and the visitor half subtracted.
- Win chance. The projected margin turned into a probability, assuming games usually land within about 14 points of the projection. A 0-point margin is 50%; 14 points is about 84%.
- The three ratings. SP+ is built from every play this season. PRIME is a possession-efficiency rating. Elo uses only final scores and carries over from year to year, with 55 Elo points of home edge.
- The numbers' pick. The team at least two of the three ratings favor, with our confidence the average of their three win chances for that team. On the game cards, a pick is a lock when all three favor the same team and the average win chance is 80% or more, a coin flip when it's under 55%, and a lean otherwise. Injuries can drop the tier: each key player out counts by what he does for his team (a starting quarterback is 2 points, the feature back or top receiver half a point, doubtful counts half), the other side's injuries offset, and 1 point drops a tier, 2 points two. The game page shows it as an injury alert. Nobody overrides the numbers' pick.
- CFB Charts Top 25. SP+, PRIME and strength of record, each converted to a common scale and averaged.
- Playoff picture. The 2026-27 rules: automatic bids for the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC champions (the current conference leader stands in until the title games) and for the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt. Notre Dame is in if it ranks in the top 12. The rest are at-large teams by the chosen rating, and all 12 are seeded straight by that rating, so the top four get the byes. Once the committee's rankings are out (first release Tuesday, Nov. 3), they become the default ranking.
- Missing data. When a team's play-by-play is clearly incomplete (fewer than 45 offensive plays a game), we hide its offense stats instead of showing bad numbers.
Rushing yards here exclude sacks, so they run higher than official totals. Ranks are out of the 138 FBS teams.
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- A rating built possession by possession: how well a team turns drives into points and keeps opponents from doing the same, adjusted for opponents. Zero is an average FBS team.
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- A results-only rating. Every team has a number, 1500 is average, and the winner takes points from the loser after every game. Beat a great team and you take a lot. Beat a bad one and you take a few. It carries part of last season over, so it's slow to catch a team that changed.
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- Opponent-adjusted
- Corrected for who a team played. Hanging 50 on an FCS team counts for less than hanging 30 on Georgia.
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- Every down, distance and spot on the field is worth some number of points on average. 1st and 10 at the opponent's 20 is worth a lot more than 3rd and 15 at your own 10. EPA is how much one play changed that number. A 50-yard bomb is a big plus. A pick-six is a very big minus.
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- A team's average EPA across all its plays. For an offense, above zero means it adds points and higher is better. For a defense, lower is better.
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- Explosive play rate
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- Schedule, Roster, Coach and Luck RECEIPTS
- The four parts of RECEIPTS. Schedule: what an average team would win against that schedule, minus .500. Roster: the extra wins from a roster this good on paper (247Sports talent and returning production). Coach: wins from playing better or worse than that roster should. Luck: actual wins against the wins SP+ expects. Recruiting rankings undersell the service academies, so their coaches get extra credit.
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- 12 teams, under the 2026-27 rules. Automatic bids go to the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC champions, and to the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt. Until the title games, each conference's current leader stands in as its champion.
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SP+ vs. payroll is the average, across a conference's teams with an NIL valuation (positive means its teams play better than their payrolls predict). Blue-chip ratio is the share of all its rostered players who were 4- or 5-star recruits.
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Seeds 1–4 get first-round byes. Seeds 5–8 host the first round.
The field and the bubble
The columns on the right show where each team would be seeded under the other ratings. A dash means out.
How the field is built
- 12 teams. Five get in automatically: the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC champions, plus the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt (champion or not).
- Notre Dame is in if it ranks in the top 12.
- At-large. The remaining spots go to the highest-ranked teams left. If an automatic qualifier ranks outside the top 12, it takes the last at-large spot.
- Seeding follows the ranking, as it has since 2025. A conference champion isn't guaranteed a bye.
- Champions mid-season. "Current conference leader" uses the best conference record so far, with ties broken by the chosen rating. "Highest-rated team" picks the best-rated team in each conference instead.
- Composite averages SP+, PRIME and strength of record after putting each on a common scale.
- This is a projection from today's numbers. The real field is chosen by a committee on Dec. 6, after conference title games.
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How we picked it
Three ratings look at a team in three different ways. The numbers' pick is the team at least two of them favor.
Where the game is won
Where the game is won
Each row puts one team's unit against the unit it faces, by national rank out of all FBS teams. An edge is a gap of 25 spots or more.
Injuries and availability
Statuses come from the conference availability reports and team news, as of the date shown. "Hasn't played" means a regular (the main passer, a quarter of the carries or 15% of the catches) with no pass, carry or catch in his team's last two games, from the play-by-play. That can be an injury, a benching or a suspension. Linemen and defenders don't show up in that check.
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Ratings: SP+ via CFB Update; PRIME via primecfb.com. Box and play stats computed from CollegeFootballData.com play data (via the public cfbfastR files), FBS games only for scoring. Rushing yards here exclude sacks, so they run higher than official totals. Ranks are out of 138 FBS teams.