Illinois State has already made FCS playoff history, winning four road games in the bracket en route to the championship game.
The Redbirds want to keep adding to that history book. And they’ll keep playing the underdog role as 10.5-point underdogs against Montana State.
But ask Illinois State, and they don’t pay much attention to the “Cinderella run” storyline surrounding their team.
“Our players are just — they have shut off the outside noise. I don’t read social media or any of that stuff myself, but they have not brought it up, and we have not talked about being underdogs and Cinderella and all that stuff and miracles,” head coach Brock Spack said at his press conference two days before the championship bout in Nashville. “You don’t win four in a row in a tournament like this and be a Cinderella, in my opinion. We come from a great football conference. Arguably, our two leagues are the premier leagues in FCS, but there are a lot of great leagues. I think all of the Missouri Valley gets us ready for a tournament like this because every weekend, you have to be ready to play in our league.”
Illinois State is back on the national championship stage for the first time since the 2014 season, which ended in heartbreaking fashion. The Redbirds took a 27-23 lead with 1:38 to play on three-time defending national champions North Dakota State. But Carson Wentz led the Bison down the field, making it 29-27 with 37 seconds left to earn another national title.
The Redbirds get another opportunity Monday for the first FCS championship win in school history.
“I’m motivated by success. That’s the ultimate success in our sport is to win a national championship,” Spack said. “I think that would be awesome. I told our team there’s only one 1. There’s only one first time. Everybody talks about the ’14 team around our place. The Bison talk about our ’14 team. We talk about their ’14 team. I think we’ll be tied at the hip for the rest of our lives because of that game. I said, ‘fellas, you have the chance to do something that no one’s ever done. There only can be one first’. It would mean a lot to them, especially how they’ve gotten here. We’re getting ready to play our 17th game. Just think about that, 17 football games for a college kid. That’s a lot of games. To be here — that’s why the tournament is set up. You’re at a disadvantage when you don’t have a bye. Then you’ve got to play four games to get to the title. You’re at a disadvantage all along, but that’s part of our fault too. We didn’t win enough games to be a seeded team. But I think it would be huge for these guys to do that. We’re here, so why not, right? Why not us?”
You can listen to Spack’s full presser below.
