NEW ORLEANS — Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua woke up Wednesday at 5:30 a.m. and checked his phone. Several news alerts popped up. The words “domestic terror attack” flashed across his screen. He clicked the first link wondering where the incident happened.

“It turned out,” Bevacqua said after Notre Dame’s 23-10 win over Georgia on Thursday in the Allstate Sugar Bowl, “that it happened just a few blocks from us.”

Wednesday, Jan. 1 was supposed to be game day for the coaches and players at Georgia and Notre Dame. Instead, most had a similar sense of dread and confusion as Bevacqua when they awoke to phone messages from family and friends, all asking about the attack in New Orleans, where a man drove his pickup truck down Bourbon Street a little after 3 a.m., killing 14 people and injuring dozens more before being shot and killed by police.

In the 36 hours that followed, officials, coaches and administrators from the schools and bowl game worked around the clock — first to confirm the physical safety of hundreds of players, staff, family and friends, and then to simultaneously make sure everyone could process the tragedy while also finding a way to play a college football game that would be the biggest of the season for both teams.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey received a call from Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley a little after 6 a.m. on Wednesday. Hundley explained that an incident had occurred on Bourbon Street, just three blocks from Georgia’s team hotel. Details were sketchy, but there was already talk that the game’s scheduled kickoff on Wednesday night could be in jeopardy.

Sankey has been through similar uncertainty before, he said — the COVID-19 season, a bomb threat before a bowl game — and his first instinct was to let the dust settle, to avoid the rumors and speculation in favor of hard facts. So, he decided to go for a run. He left his hotel, turned down Canal Street in the heart of the French Quarter, and quickly understood just how grim the situation was.

“You see the coroner’s wagon,” Sankey said, “and I realized pretty quickly the scope of the scene.”

Earlier in the week, Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard had gone around the locker room asking each of his teammates if they had spare tickets for the game. Leonard is from Fairhope, Alabama, less than a three-hour drive from New Orleans, and this was the closest he’d ever had to a home game in his college career. He had close to 100 family and friends, including the mayor of Fairhope, planning to make the trip.

By Wednesday morning, he was just hoping few had yet to get into their cars for the drive.

Leonard’s father, Chad, awakened to the sounds of emergency vehicles just after 3 a.m. but assumed it was the typical background noise in a city like New Orleans, where the revelry doesn’t end until the sun is up, and the sirens are part of the soundtrack of the party. His wife, Heather, also noticed all the text messages popping up on her phone but assumed it was friends saying, “Happy New Year” and didn’t check until morning.

“It was just a sad, bizarre day trying to communicate with everybody,” Heather Leonard said.

Chad Leonard did a quick roll call, scrolling through his phone to reach out to everyone he knew who was planning to be at the game. Everyone was safe.

Meanwhile, Chad and Heather were being pinged by the staff at Notre Dame. After accounting for players and support staff, head coach Marcus Freeman turned his attention to the cadre of family members he knew were in town to support their sons.

“They wanted every parent to check in and make sure their group was OK,” Heather Leonard said. “They told us the players were all OK, and they just wanted to make sure we were good.”

Georgia and Notre Dame players were effectively under lockdown at their team hotels through the early part of the day, still unsure if there was a game to be played.

Figuring out that part fell to a small group of law enforcement, government officials, conference and team personnel and Hundley, the Sugar Bowl CEO.

“It was a whirlwind,” Hundley said. “I was questioning what it meant, were we going to be able to play?”

Hundley was a centerpiece in a phone tree that extended from Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry to the city’s police chief, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, leadership at the FBI and state police department, Sankey and the teams’ athletics directors, along with the staff at the Caesars Superdome, which was scheduled to host the Sugar Bowl on Wednesday and then immediately make room for another event happening Thursday.

By midmorning, Hundley said, it was clear the game couldn’t be played as scheduled. The bulk of the city’s law enforcement was focused on investigating the attack. And as of a Wednesday afternoon news conference, investigators still believed the attack could involve more than just the driver of the pickup truck. So, safety concerns for the city remained, and there would be insufficient security for the game.

Landry quickly got to work connecting city and Sugar Bowl officials with law enforcement around the region. Hundley said he was convinced the game could safely be played the following day. Unlike in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when the Sugar Bowl was moved to Atlanta, there was never any serious discussion of changing venues.

“There was confidence from law enforcement they’d have the necessary assets in place,” Hundley said. “And this is a big-event city. When it comes to logistics, we can do almost anything. We knew it would be a matter of just working through details.”

Still, those details were massive. Sugar Bowl officials had to work to ensure there were enough hotel rooms for the teams for an extra night, work with law enforcement to beef up security, adjust the Superdome’s event schedule, and work with ESPN and other media partners to find a broadcast window that worked.

The initial plan was to move the game back 24 hours and kick off in a prime-time TV window Thursday, but both teams were eager to play the game as soon as it was safe to do so. Sankey had been on a text chain with Georgia president Jere Morehead, AD Josh Brooks and head coach Kirby Smart throughout the day. Bevacqua said he traded more than 20 texts with College Football Playoff executive director Rich Clark, hoping to find a path to get the game played as quickly as possible. Ultimately, city and state leaders were able to gather support from the FBI, ATF and other Louisiana and out-of-state police departments to cover security needs for the game.

“The winning team would’ve already lost a day in that,” Sankey said. “So, there were some questions that produced more phone calls and text messages. About 3 or 4 p.m. we understood that there’d be enough time for security preparations [for a 3 p.m. CT kickoff].”

In the team hotels, coaches were working to find a course of action that allowed the teams to process the tragedy of the day while still focusing on a game that needed to be played.

Smart set up a FaceTime call with coaches and team leadership and came up with a plan. “We brought the players down and met with them and said, ‘This is the plan moving forward,'” Smart said. “They said, ‘Let’s go. Put the ball down and get ready to go play.'”

Freeman’s initial thought was to keep the team as dialed in to football as possible but changed his mind.

“Once you found out more details about the tragedy, the emotions took over each individual differently,” he said.

Notre Dame team chaplain Rev. Nathan D. Wills held a team prayer service that afternoon.

“It’s OK to mourn for what happened in this city and what happened to these victims,” Bevacqua said of the prayer service message. “But you can also enjoy what you have tomorrow and this opportunity. That’s the human condition, right? Dealing with the worst of the worst and this unbelievable moment in the lives of these young student athletes, almost simultaneously. I think that was tough on them, but it’s to the credit of Coach Freeman and his staff, I think the team handled it so well.”

Freeman held a normal walk-through and a team meeting, but then he gave the team three hours Wednesday night to visit with family.

“Being a parent myself, in times of tragedy, you want to be around your children,” Freeman said. “I think that helped the parents as much as it helped the players to be around each other, and to help them reset and get their mind into a place that it needed to be.”

It was a necessary escape, defensive end R.J. Oben said.

“It was good to take time off to spend with our families and clear our minds,” he said. “We woke up with the intention to play a game. We didn’t really know we weren’t going to be playing until about 3 in the afternoon. Once we talked about it, Coach gave us a schedule, guys stayed together and stayed locked in.”

A number of players stayed in — some watching movies on Netflix, some getting extra rest, and a number investing in more film study of Georgia, including Leonard.

After team meetings, Leonard texted quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli and asked to get in some extra work. They spent more than four hours sifting through tape of Georgia.

“Every single person in our locker room is praying for those families that are out there,” Leonard said. “But as a Notre Dame player, you recruit the right people for a reason. And I think adding another day is just helping our superpower out. We say our superpowers all the time: our preparation and the character in our locker room. Those are two intangible things that we have that we utilize.”

If Leonard thought the extra time benefited the Irish, Smart was quick to dismiss any notion that the tragic events had any impact on how his team performed when it finally took the field.

“That was a very traumatic event,” Smart said. “But this team was focused and ready to go play. So, I’m not going to sit here and talk about the tragedy affecting our team. Notre Dame played well. We didn’t play great. But when we turned the ball over twice and have a kickoff returned, that’s what I attribute the loss to. Not to the tragedy or what happened. And that’s not any disrespect to the community of New Orleans or the people with tragic losses.”

By Thursday morning, Bourbon Street had reopened to foot traffic. Revelers — many in Georgia red and black or Notre Dame green and gold — enjoyed lunch and cocktails before making their way to the stadium for a midafternoon kickoff.

But around the Superdome, it was clear things had changed. Most streets surrounding the stadium were closed to vehicle traffic. K-9 units and armed police were omnipresent. SWAT team trucks were parked on nearly every corner, and photographers snapped pictures of the eerie scene.

Inside the stadium though, the reverie continued.

More than 57,000 fans came through the gates — about 80% of what had initially been expected — for a robust turnout that surprised even Hundley.

New Orleans native Samyra sang the national anthem, and the crowd erupted in chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A.” Before the game, Notre Dame players decided they wanted to make a gesture of support. They ran onto the field carrying the American flag.

“It was a hard day for many reasons but the teamwork with [local, state and bowl officials] — everybody came together and said, ‘Let’s try to make the best situation out of a really horrible moment in time for the city and America,” said Bevacqua, who spent Wednesday from 5:30 a.m. to midnight on the phone trying to make the game happen. “And there was such energy in the stadium. That was comforting to see.”

Notre Dame won. That won’t be what most fans remember about this year’s Sugar Bowl. As Hundley stood on the field amid postgame confetti and celebrations, having barely slept in the past 40 hours, he thought that perhaps they won’t remember it entirely for an act of terrorism either. Instead, they might also think of the resilience of a city and the effort of so many people who came together to ensure the game could be played.

“Sports can really be a healing exercise,” Hundley said. “I don’t know if this was or wasn’t, but I sure hope it was.”

Mark Schlabach contributed to this story.

The College Football Playoff will not flip the dates and times of the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic and the Capital One Orange Bowl after SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said on Thursday he made the request to change them.

With its 23-10 Allstate Sugar Bowl win against Georgia on Thursday, Notre Dame will face Penn State on Jan. 9 in the Capital One Orange Bowl at 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN). On New Year’s Eve, Penn State advanced when it beat Boise State 31-14 in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl.

The quarterfinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl was delayed after a deadly pickup truck attack in New Orleans that killed 15 people and injured dozens more.

Sankey’s concern was a potential disadvantage for Notre Dame, which will have to play on a shorter turnaround than Penn State, which hasn’t played since New Year’s Eve and will get a longer rest.

“We’re not going to flip the games,” CFP executive director Rich Clark told ESPN on Friday morning. “The concession we made with the athletic directors was to start the Sugar Bowl earlier — an 18-hour or so delay. We slipped the game 18 hours to ensure we could provide safety and security for teams, coaches, staffs, fans and others involved. NOLA and Sugar Bowl officials were amazing.”

Texas needed double overtime to escape a gritty Arizona State team on New Year’s Day 39-31 and the Longhorns will face Ohio State, which trounced Oregon 41-21 in the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential, at 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN) on Jan. 10 in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic On Thursday, Sankey said he raised the issue of potentially changing the game on “The Paul Finebaum Show” and asked decision-makers involved if it would be possible.

“I recognize that’s difficult,” Sankey told Finebaum. “I don’t know if it is impossible. I raised that [Wednesday] and the focus quickly became today’s kickoff, today’s game and we’ll see what happens.

“This is not an SEC-related issue, it’s for both teams,” Sankey said. “I also know that the communities have dates, they have plans, there are stadium availability issues that can arise. What I’ve not heard back from anybody after having asked the question is really directly a yes or no answer to the question I asked.”

Clark told ESPN on Friday morning that the logistics of changing the games would be difficult.

“Logistics are very complicated, disruptive to the other teams involved that have schedules in place, especially Texas and Ohio State,” he said. “Fans have made arrangements already and this creates issues for them. There’s more, but these are some of the major points.”

Sankey told Finebaum he realizes this conversation resulted from an “unforeseen, unexpected, incredible horrible tragedy that has altered the schedule.”

“Sometimes just like within a game you have to adapt you have to adjust,” Sankey said. “Right now with the schedule set, these teams will have to adjust their preparation based on the schedule that lies ahead.”

ATLANTA — The national championship drought has stretched nearly 20 years at Texas, not that anyone needs to tell quarterback Quinn Ewers. Somewhere in his childhood home, his mom still has a Longhorns hat he wore when he was 3, and 4 and 5, refusing to let anyone take it off his head. He’s been thinking about a Longhorns national title since he took that hat off. And, for a time, he was sure last season would finally be when that drought came to an end.

Texas had won its first Big 12 championship since 2009 and advanced to its first College Football Playoff appearance behind Ewers, who had made his literal childhood dream come true when he decided to play for the Longhorns. Everything felt as if it was coming together for a storybook ending headed into their semifinal game against Washington in the Allstate Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2024.

Though Ewers struggled for long stretches, he rallied Texas in the fourth quarter. Down 37-31 with 41 seconds left, Ewers had a chance to lead a game-winning drive. All he had to do was take Texas 69 yards for the score.

He got inside the Washington 15 and then had four tries to score. On the final attempt, Ewers dropped back and lofted a ball for Adonai Mitchell in the end zone. Elijah Jackson batted the ball away.

Ewers was reduced to tears, his red-rimmed eyes speaking for him during the postgame news conference.

That night in the Sugar Bowl stuck with him for a year. Now, Ewers has delivered Texas back to the semifinal, a date with Ohio State — his former school — looming in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl. And his goals have not changed in the year since the Sugar Bowl loss.

He still wants to be the quarterback to deliver the first Texas national title since 2005.

“It definitely was tough just to go back and watch what happened,” Ewers told ESPN during a quiet moment in the locker room after a 39-31 win over Arizona State in the College Football Playoff Quarterfinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. “It feels you’re like an inch away from going to the national championship. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

“I mean, I can tell you, I probably didn’t sleep for two days after that game.”

Nine days after that Sugar Bowl loss, Ewers announced he would return to Texas. Ewers had endured plenty in 2023, beyond the gut-wrenching ending to the Sugar Bowl. Though he was entrenched as the starter after transferring to Texas in 2022 from Ohio State, Texas had just signed freshman phenom Arch Manning, nephew of Peyton and Eli. Nothing Ewers did seemed good enough for the fan base. Whispers followed every bad play, every average performance.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian never stopped believing that Ewers was his guy. And Ewers and Manning maintain that their relationship is strong. But the lasting image from that Sugar Bowl may very well be the snapshot of Ewers, sitting alone on a dais at media day, looking behind him at a large crowd gathered to talk to Manning.

Despite everything he has done to bring Texas back to national relevance, he’ll be the guy some fans have been waiting on to leave for two years.

Unless he wins two more games.

Of course, there were those who did not expect him to stay for 2024. The natural assumption was that Ewers would leave after last season and that Manning would finally take the starting quarterback job. Instead, that loss in the Sugar Bowl solidified Ewers’ decision to come back.

This year, Texas became his team more than ever. As Texas worked to make it back, Ewers said, “That is just a testament to my teammates and how much trust everybody has in me, and I feel like it helps me be a better player.”

Manning played more this year, starting two games after Ewers sustained an abdominal injury in September and seeing spot duty in situational run packages, especially after Ewers sprained his ankle late in the season. But even in games when Ewers struggled to move the offense, Sarkisian stayed loyal to his starter.

Ewers is comfortable leading this offense. With him, it knows how to win. His teammates believe in him. Ewers will end his Texas career as one of the all-time greats in program history. As it stands, he ranks No. 3 in career passing yards and touchdowns thrown for the Longhorns; he has thrown a touchdown pass in 26 straight games, the longest streak by a Texas QB since Colt McCoy from 2007 to 2009. Only McCoy has more 300-yard passing games than Ewers.

In 35 career starts, Ewers is 27-8. Five of those losses came in his first year as a starter in 2022. Two came to Georgia this season, and Ewers’ performances in both losses gave his critics plenty of fodder to hold against him. His play might look downright clunky at times, but when he delivers, he shows off playmaking ability that made him the No. 1 recruit in the country out of high school.

Like when Ewers delivered two perfect passes on the first two plays of the Peach Bowl against Arizona State. Then nothing for two quarters. The fourth quarter was the typical yin-and-yang Ewers experience. His 5-yard touchdown run put Texas up 24-8 and brought out a rare show of emotion, as he flexed his arms to punctuate the score.

Arizona State answered with a touchdown. Two plays into the ensuing drive, Ewers threw an interception with 5:45 to play, leading to the game-tying score. From there, though, Ewers was locked in — going 8-of-10 for 105 yards on the last two drives of the fourth quarter — putting Texas in field goal range both times. Bert Auburn missed both attempts.

In overtime, Texas was down to its final play: fourth-and-13 from the Arizona State 28. Though it was not identical to the situation in the Sugar Bowl a year ago, it was close enough.

It was on Ewers to make a throw to save the season.

Texas got to the line, and Ewers sent a player in motion. That is when he says he saw Arizona State tip its defensive playcall, because sometimes Texas motions and then snaps right away. Ewers changed the protection to account for the defensive play — where the Sun Devils planned to bring their safety and linebackers and rush six. With the safety now rushing the passer, Ewers knew he would have Matthew Golden down the field wide open.

Touchdown, Texas.

“I think everybody sees the throw and the catch,” offensive coordinator Kyle Flood said. “I don’t know if you saw him change the protection. I knew we were going to be protected. We’re going to be clean. And now it’s just a matter, hopefully we can get open. He makes the right throw.”

“Quinn’s got a clutch gene, and he came through,” said Texas edge player Ethan Burke, who stood on the sideline waiting for the final play.

In the second overtime, Sarkisian called a play Texas often runs during spring and fall camp for tight end Gunnar Helm in overtime situations. “We have a really solid defense, so most of the time it gets covered up,” Ewers said. “Even if he wasn’t one-on-one, I was going to give Gunnar a shot, and if that wasn’t there, I knew I had Tre [Wisner] in the flat. So, just so cool to see that play come to fruition.”

Indeed, as Texas cornerback Jahdae Barron cradled the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl Defensive MVP trophy in one arm while answering a question about the defensive performance, he stopped midsentence.

“Big shoutout to Quinn,” Barron said. “He doesn’t get the love that he should get from others, but it doesn’t matter. He knows he doesn’t need that love. We love him.”

Barron, Ewers and the other players who felt the sting after the loss in the Sugar Bowl in 2024 now have their second chance to advance to the national title game.

“I don’t think any of them forget being in New Orleans at the end of that game last year, and I don’t think any of them forgot all offseason long, and the obsession that they’ve had with getting back to this stage, I think is one that has fueled us through a fair amount of adversity that has gotten us back here,” Sarkisian said.

“That is definitely accurate,” Ewers said. “This game is my life, and this game is this whole team’s life, and for us to go as far as we did, and the amount of time that we put in was definitely hard, but [we’re] just so thankful that we have another opportunity to go win and a game that we lost last year.”