Sugar Bowl CFP quarterfinals postponed after deadly truck attack in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame was postponed a day because of an attack about a mile away from the Superdome early Wednesday, as authorities said a truck driver deliberately plowed into a New Year crowd and killed 15 people.

The game, originally scheduled for 7:45 p.m. CST in the 70,000-seat Superdome on Wednesday, was pushed back to 7 p.m. 15:00 Thursday. The winner advances to the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9 against Penn State.

“Public safety is paramount,” Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley said at a media briefing alongside federal, state and local officials, including Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell. “All parties all agree that it is in everyone’s best interest and public safety that we postpone the game.”

The casualties happened when a driver rammed a pickup truck into a crowd of revelers in New Orleans’ famous French Quarter early on New Year’s Day. In addition to those killed, more than 30 people were injured. The driver was killed in a shootout with police after the attack around 3:15 a.m. along Bourbon Street near Canal Street, the FBI said.

The decision to postpone the game meant that several traveling fans with tickets would not be able to attend. Ticket prices online fell to less than $25 in some cases as fans with plans to travel Thursday tried to offload them.

“We can’t get new planes,” said Lisa Borrelli, a 34-year-old Philadelphia resident who came to New Orleans with her fiancé, a 2011 Notre Dame graduate.

Postponing the game “was absolutely the right call,” she said. “I totally understand.”

She said they paid more than $250 per person. ticket and that they had not yet bothered to sell them for resale because the prices were so low.

“Obviously we’re disappointed to miss it and to lose so much money on it, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter,” Borrelli said. “We’re so lucky that we’re going to do well.”

The US Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., said the decision to postpone the fight “was not made lightly.”

“It was done with one thing in mind: public safety — to make sure that the citizens and visitors of this great city, not just for this event, but for every event you come to in Louisiana, that you will be safe,” Carter added.

Landry said he had a message for those thinking, “Man, do I really want to go to the Sugar Bowl tomorrow?”

“I’ll tell you one thing: Your governor will be there,” Landry said. “It’s proof, believe me, that that facility and this city is safer today than it was yesterday.”

Darrell Huckaby, 72, of Athens, Georgia, also decided to return home Thursday instead of staying for the game. He was in a hotel room overlooking the corner where the attack took place. He was asleep when it happened, but when he woke up, he could see pink blankets covering the bodies of the dead and later saw them being bagged and loaded onto trucks headed to the Orleans Parish Coroner’s office.

“It was heartbreaking,” he said. “I think most people’s first instinct this morning was to want to be home. As important as football is to our culture in Georgia, for a while, the game just didn’t really seem to matter.

“And I think there was a lot of uncertainty, and I understand that,” Huckaby said. “It took them a long time to decide on playing time, and people kind of had to make decisions without all the information.”

He added that he would “probably eat” the $360 per ticket he paid.

Hundley said work was underway to “create a safe and efficient and fun environment” at and around the Superdome Thursday.

The Superdome was locked down for a security investigation Wednesday morning.

Both teams spent most of the day at their hotels and held meetings in ballrooms.

Georgia’s players took the bus to the Superdome for a walkthrough practice Wednesday night. When they got to the buses on Canal Street, fans in red and black stood eight to ten deep behind barricades and cheered them on, phones held high overhead to catch the scene.

Around that time, at a hotel on the banks of the Mississippi River, Notre Dame players gathered with family members in a ballroom where the Rose Bowl quarterfinal between Ohio State and Oregon was being shown on television.

Notre Dame offered band members the option to fly home Thursday instead of attending the game, and some chose to do so.

Georgia President Jere Morehead said the university confirmed one student was among those seriously injured. Morehead said the university was in contact with the student’s family.

Statements from the University of Georgia Athletic Association and from Notre Dame said both schools had accounted for all team personnel and members of official travel parties.

New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno told WDSU-TV earlier Wednesday, before the postponement was announced, that the security perimeter around the Superdome was “expanded to be a larger zone.”

“There are more police officers coming in,” she said.

The Superdome, which is about 20 blocks away, is also scheduled to host the Super Bowl on February 9.

The first Super Bowl after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 was also held in New Orleans, and there was a massive security perimeter for that game, including street blockades around the Superdome and officers—including snipers—on top of the surrounding high-rise. -rise buildings, as well as on the roof of the dome itself.

“We are deeply saddened by the news of the devastating incident in New Orleans,” the NFL said in a statement.

“The NFL and the local host committee have worked with local, state and federal agencies for the past two years and have developed comprehensive security plans,” the statement continued. “We are confident that attendees will have a safe and enjoyable Super Bowl experience.”

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AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi in Clearwater, Fla., and AP Sports Writer Paul Newberry in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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