The real Cinderella

 Goodness gracious. All this time, and Cinderella was hiding out somewhere else.

No, not in the College Football Playoff, where yesterday Tulane and James Madison mounted a convincing argument for a separate Group of Five CFP. The Tulanes went down to Ole Miss, 41-10. JMU trailed Oregon 34-7 at halftime before the Ducks lost interest and coasted to a 51-34 win. 

Football, it turns out, is not basketball, and Tulane and JMU were not George Mason or Florida Atlantic. If the CFP selectors were hoping for some sort of December Madness, they didn't get it. 

So who were the real Cinderellas?

Well, they hail from Normal, Ill., where things definitely are not normal these days. Instead, the Illinois State Redbirds of the Missouri Valley Conference are getting ready to play in the FCS national title game after one of the more improbable runs in that playoff's history.

The unseeded Redbirds made the playoffs after finishing third in the MVC with an 8-4 record. They took out 16th-seed Southeastern Louisiana in the first round, then journeyed up to MVC champion, defending national champion and top-ranked North Dakota State for round two.

The Redbirds lost to the Bison 33-16 back in October. This time, though ...

Well. This time, they jacked around and won, 29-28, knocking out the most dominant program in FCS. The Bison, after all, had won 10 national titles since 2011, including five of the last eight. They weren't supposed to lose to the likes of Illinois State.

But they did.

And then the Redbirds beat 8-seed UC-Davis 42-31 in the quarterfinals.

And yesterday they beat 12-seed Villanova 30-14, snapping 'Nova's FCS-leading 22-game home winning streak.

Four games. Four wins. All on the road.

Now the Redbirds get 2-seed Montana State in the national title game. Montana State will be favored, of course. This will mean nothing, of course -- or at least it has so far.

Cinderella gonna Cinderella, after all. At least in some precincts of college football.