The Georgia Bulldogs and Notre Dame Fighting Irish will play within the Sugar Bowl as a part of the College Football Playoff quarterfinals on Thursday night within the wake of a terror attack on Bourbon Street that left greater than a dozen useless.
Sugar Bowl officers and lawmakers determined to postpone the sport to 4 p.m. ET after it was set to be the ultimate sport of a three-game playoff slate on Wednesday. Both faculties arrived in New Orleans on Sunday and had been reportedly simply blocks away from the carnage that struck town.
Fans who got here to the Big Easy scrambled to make their ultimate plans with the sport on maintain.
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A mounted police officer arrives on Canal Street after a car drove right into a crowd earlier in New Orleans on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Kevin McGill)
Lisa Borrelli, a 34-year-old Philadelphia resident and Notre Dame graduate, got here to New Orleans along with her fiancé to observe the Fighting Irish.
“We can’t get new flights,” she informed The Associated Press, including that she understood why officers postponed the sport and that it was “completely the appropriate name.”
Borrelli mentioned they paid greater than $250 per ticket and didn’t hassle itemizing them on a third-party website as a result of costs had been so low. Early Thursday morning, tickets had been going for as little as $26 on some websites.
“Of course we’re disenchanted to overlook it and to lose a lot cash on it, however on the finish of the day it would not matter,” Borrelli mentioned. “We’re lucky sufficient that we’ll be nice.”
Darrell Huckaby, a 72-year-old Georgia resident, informed the AP that he determined to return residence on Thursday as a substitute of staying for the sport. He mentioned he was in a room overlooking the place the assault came about. He mentioned he was asleep when it occurred, however when he wakened, he noticed blankets overlaying useless our bodies.
Huckaby mentioned he would “most likely eat” the $360 per ticket he paid.
“It was heartbreaking,” he mentioned. “I believe the primary intuition of most individuals this morning was desirous to be residence. As necessary as soccer is to our Georgia tradition, for a short while, the sport simply did not actually appear to matter.
Fans line on the entrance desk of the Sheraton lodge after the Sugar Bowl CFP quarterfinal between Georgia and Notre Dame was postponed after an assault on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025. (Geoff Burke-Imagn Images)
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“And I believe there was a whole lot of uncertainty, and I perceive,” Huckaby mentioned. “It took them a very long time to resolve on the sport time and other people form of needed to make selections with out all the data.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told NBC News on Wednesday the sport must be postponed to Friday.
“Not my resolution, however I wish to see it delayed a minimum of one other day. If they requested my opinion, I might inform them that,” Murrill mentioned. “I believe that it was smart to delay it a minimum of a day. This is an lively crime scene, they usually simply completed eradicating a number of the our bodies, they usually nonetheless have not eliminated all of them. I nonetheless assume we have to wait an additional day.”
Georgia and Notre Dame gamers spent the day on lockdown, spending most of it in ballrooms going via conferences. Georgia gamers had been bused to the Superdome for a walk-through apply on Wednesday night.
Notre Dame gamers watched the Rose Bowl quarterfinal with their household. Notre Dame supplied band members the choice to fly residence early and a few selected to take action.
The terrorist assault left a number of injured, together with a University of Georgia pupil.
“I’m deeply saddened by the devastating assault in New Orleans in a single day, and I lengthen my honest condolences to the victims, their households, and all these affected by this horrible tragedy,” University of Georgia President Jere W. Morehead mentioned in an announcement.
Sugar Bowl followers from the University of Georgia and Notre Dame cease to take images as New Orleans police and federal brokers examine a suspected terrorist assault on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (Chris Granger/The New Orleans Advocate through AP)
“At this level, we have now realized {that a} University of Georgia pupil was critically injured within the assault and is receiving medical therapy. I’ve spoken to the scholar’s household and shared my concern, assist and properly needs on behalf of the whole UGA group. I wish to specific my gratitude to all the primary responders who moved so shortly to assist these affected by this mindless act of violence, in addition to to the medical personnel who’re caring for the injured.”
The University of Georgia Athletic Association and officers from Notre Dame mentioned each faculties had accounted for all staff personnel and members of official journey events.
Security will likely be heightened for the sport. The safety perimeter across the facility was being “prolonged to a bigger zone,” New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno informed WDSU-TV earlier than the sport was postponed.
“There are extra law enforcement officials who’re coming in,” she mentioned.
The Caesars Superdome can be the host website for Super Bowl LIX.
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The Superdome hosted the primary Super Bowl after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults. The metropolis beefed up safety then as properly, with officers, together with snipers, on the tops of surrounding high-rise buildings, in addition to on the roof of the dome.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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