Georgia vs. Notre Dame 2024 Sugar Bowl game postponed after New Orleans tragedy in Bourbon Street attack

The College Football Playoff quarterfinal game at the 2025 Sugar Bowl has been postponed after at least 10 people were killed and more than 30 people were injured early Wednesday morning in New Orleans after an armed man drove a pickup truck into a large crowd on Bourbon Street in a deadly attack.

Jeff Hundley, Sugar Bowl committee CEO, announced that the game will now be played on Thursday. "It's in the best interest of everybody and public safety that we postpone," Hundley told reporters.

The winner still advances to face No. 6 seed Penn State in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9 as part of the CFP semifinals.

The deadly incident in New Orleans happened around 3:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to the city's emergency responders, a little over 16 hours before Notre Dame and Georgia were previously scheduled to begin their quarterfinal matchup less than a mile away at the Caesars Superdome. The driver was driving at a high speed and within moments started firing on police officers from inside the vehicle, according to New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick.

USA TODAY confirmed with New Orleans police that the driver was fatally shot by police. The FBI said in an initial statement Wednesday that it was "working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism." The FBI identified the driver as 42-year-old Texas resident Shamsud Din Jabbar, citing the FBI. He appeared to be carrying an ISIS flag in the truck and was dressed in military gear, according to the report.

Kirkpatrick said initially the Sugar Bowl game would be played as scheduled. Bill Cassidy, a Republican U.S. senator in Louisiana, also told CNN in an interview Wednesday that he was "extremely confident" the Sugar Bowl game would be played.

"The standard operating procedure for a big game like the Sugar Bowl, for a Saints game, for the Super Bowl is to go through the building, make sure there's nothing there that's wrong, and then to lock it down," Cassidy said. "The Sugar Bowl, the Super Dome has been locked down. There is going to be no problem there."

Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley said in an initial statement released Wednesday morning expressing condolences for the victims and their families that "we are in ongoing discussions with authorities on the local, state, and federal levels and will communicate further details as they become available.”

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