Illinois Football: Illini favored to land 2024 4-star running back

The Illinois football team could be landing another top recruit for the class of 2024 on Saturday.

Bret Bielema and the Illini coaching staff have been hard at work trying to land another top-50 recruiting class. The 2022 and 2023 classes both finished inside the top 50, and now the class of 2024 is right there, as it is currently ranked No. 44 in the country.

With 16 commitments, there is still a long way to go before the 2024 class is buttoned up, though. There are still plenty of big fish left in the pond, and the Illini might be catching one of those fish in the form of Ca’Lil Valentine.

Valentine took two official visits, the first one was to Utah on June 16 and the second one was to Illinois on June 23. He also made a commitment date known, which is July 8. On Friday, Valentine was able to confirm the time, which will be 3:00 p.m. CT.

Illinois football is favored to land talented four-star running back, Ca’Lil Valentine

Valentine is a 6-foot, 180-pound running back from Chandler High School in Arizona. He is rated as a four-star recruit and ranked as the No. 350 player in the class of 2024. He is also the No. 30 running back in the country and the No. 8 player coming out of Arizona.

This recruitment has been down to Illinois and Utah for quite some time, and for a while, some of the experts were predicting that the Utes would come out ahead. On Friday, that changed.

Three Crystal Ball Predictions were submitted on Friday in favor of Illinois landing Valentine. Two of those predictions were from the 247Sports Mountain Region Recruiting Analyst, Blair Angulo, and the Utah Insider, Steve Bartle. They both gave a confidence of six out of 10.

Hopefully, these predictions come true, and Illinois is able to pull in another talented player for 2024. If Valentine does pick the Illini, this would help boost the recruiting class into the top 40.