Sugar Bowl postponement: ESPN provides additional details on tragic day in New Orleans

A day that should’ve been about celebrating a new year and college football bowl games became, instead, one of uncertainty and tragedy. An early-morning terrorist attack in New Orleans on Wednesday meant the Sugar Bowl moved to Thursday, meaning Georgia and Notre Dame would have to wait to play their College Football Playoff quarterfinal.

ESPN’s Laura Rutledge had more details about the adjustments both teams had to make. Shelter-in-place orders were in effect at both hotels after at least 15 people were killed when a suspect drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Street into a crowd. Law enforcement officials also confirmed explosives were found near the site, and an ISIS flag was in the vehicle.

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Police then swept the Superdome for explosives, leading to a lockdown at one point. They didn’t find any. But the Sugar Bowl will have to wait until Thursday at 4 p.m. ET as officials made public safety a priority, and Rutledge said both Georgia and Notre Dame were doing what they could to maximize the extra time – while also dealing with the events of the morning.

“As the teams have gathered more information, Georgia and Notre Dame, finding out kickoff would be moved to 4 p.m. Eastern – 3 local – tomorrow, they’ve tried to build out their schedules doing team meetings throughout the day, as well as some light walk-throughs in ballrooms at the hotels. But also, trying to keep everybody as calm as possible,” Rutledge said Wednesday night.

“There’s a shock amongst everybody, of course, here, as you might imagine. And both teams echoing the sentiment of being so concerned and worried for the victims of these attacks, as well as their families and anybody affected by it.”

According to the AP, the incident occurred toward the end of New Year’s celebrations, at 3:15 a.m. local time in New Orleans. A man drove a pickup truck through a crowd of people and later opened fire on law enforcement. Initially, officials said 10 people were killed in the incident. However, later Wednesday, that number grew to 15.

But with IEDs discovered around the site, law enforcement staff erred on the side of caution. Rutledge said that’s why the game got postponed. As Louisiana attorney general Lisa Murrill said, there is no larger threat at the current time. But the Superdome will have extra security when Thursday’s game gets underway.

“As we found out more information, the main reason why they did want to postpone this game is because of public safety and the efforts needed to make sure this Superdome footprint would be as safe as possible for this game to be played,” Rutledge said. “That has been paramount. They’re adding an extra layer of security here at the Superdome. You’ll see that inside the stadium, as well as outside.

“Law enforcement coming from all over the place to beef up this security operation as much as possible, and that was very important to not only the city officials, as well as the FBI, the College Football Playoff officials and the Sugar Bowl officials. That’s been the priority.”