Illinois State pulled off one of the biggest upsets in college football history on Saturday

What sort of odds would I needed to give you to take Illinois State over No. 1-ranked and FCS defending national champion North Dakota State in the Fargodome on Saturday? What if I told you North Dakota State forced a three-and-out to open the game and scored on their first play from scrimmage? What if I told you NDSU scored on offense, defense and special teams? What if I told you NDSU led 14-0 just over 10 minutes into the game? And they had the ball with a 28-14 lead with 6:13 left in the game? Knowing all that, the question you'd ask is why NDSU wasn't up 48-14 with just over six minutes to play. 

Okay, now what if I told you all those things happened, and Illinois State won anyway?

Illinois State pulled off a miracle in the second round of the FCS playoffs on Saturday. The miracle wasn't that they beat the Bison. A difficult win, to say the least, but Illinois State is a good team and I don't want to insult them by saying it took a miracle to win. No, the miracle was that Illinois State played a highly flawed football game and beat North Dakota State anyway.

The Redbirds absolutely dominated the possession battle in the game, running 91 plays to NDSU's 46. In all, the Redbirds possessed the ball for more than 42 minutes and gained 23 first downs to the Bison's six. That's all the more impressive considering Illinois State threw five interceptions. 

Still, Illinois State persevered. A 21-yard punt return gave ISU the ball at the NDSU 41-yard line with 4:35 to play, and the Redbirds scored in seven plays to pull within 28-21 with 2:44 remaining. North Dakota State could have iced the game by converting a 3rd-and-4 at the 2-minute warning, but Jake Anderson strip-sacked Bison quarterback Cole Payton, giving the Redbirds the ball at the Bison 23 with 1:51 remaining. 

Tommy Rittenhouse, he of the five interceptions, hit Daniel Sobkowicz for a 6-yard touchdown with a minute to play, and then found Scotty Presson, Jr., for the go-ahead 2-point conversion. 

“I thought myself earlier in the week, we gotta for 2,” Spack said. “We met as a staff and I said, listen fellas, if it gets to that down here we need to go for 2. Lo and behold, it came up and we did. So, there was really no waffling. Everybody knew.”

Trailing in the fourth quarter for just the second time this season, North Dakota State moved to their own 44 but pushed no further. The defending national champions were dead.

It's the earliest a North Dakota State football season has ended since 2009. The Bison had won 16 consecutive games overall and 17 straight first- or second-round playoff games.

Illinois State is now off to the FCS quarterfinals for the first time since 2009, where they'll visit No. 8 seed UC Davis. And those Aggies had better look out: the Redbirds -- Roadbirds? -- have now won seven straight road games and are 13-1 overall on the road over the past two seasons.