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 Thursday he asked about the possibility of changing them.

With its 23-10 Allstate Sugar Bowl win against Georgia on Thursday, Notre Dame will face Penn State next Thursday in the 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 Sugar Bowl was delayed after a pickup truck attack in New Orleans that left 15 people dead and dozens more injured.

Sankey’s concern was a potential disadvantage for Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish will have to play on a shorter turnaround than Penn State, which hasn’t played since New Year’s Eve and thus 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 Cotton Bowl Classic. Thursday, Sankey said on “The Paul Finebaum Show” that he had raised the issue of potentially changing the game and had asked decision-makers involved whether 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 that 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.”

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said on Friday that Ohio State is “the best team in college football,” and the Longhorns will need their best performance in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic on Jan. 10 to beat the Buckeyes.

“I need Longhorn Nation to show out in Arlington,” Sarkisian said. “We’re going to need everything we’ve got to try to win this game. Clearly, we’re massive underdogs. Nobody’s going to give us a shot. … This is the best team in college football, and we’re going to have to make sure that we put our best forward to give ourselves a chance to win the game.”

Oregon was the No. 1 team in all six of this year’s College Football Playoff rankings, with Ohio State No. 2 in the first four of them.

After crushing the Ducks, 41-21, including leading 34-0 in the second quarter, the Buckeyes are surging as they head to AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Sarkisian said the offense, in particular wide receivers Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka, pose a huge challenge.

“They’re both big physical players,” Sarkisian said. “They have length, they have speed, they have playmaking ability on the ball. They have really big catch radiuses. They’ve got the scheme to go with it, with Coach [Chip] Kelly and Coach [Ryan] Day, and they’ve got a quarterback who delivers on the ball. So you add all that up, these guys are impactful players that are real issues and we’re going to have a hard time guarding ’em.”

Both teams are facing familiar quarterbacks. Texas’ Quinn Ewers spent his freshman year at Ohio State before transferring back to Austin, and Will Howard faced the Longhorns with Kansas State before transferring to Ohio State.

“[Howard] snapped off about a 70-yard touchdown run against us a few years ago. So he has good speed, he’s got great poise and composure in the pocket,” Sarkisian said. “He throws passes where they need to be thrown and guys make plays for him.”

Day said earlier on Friday that Ewers was one of the first eighth-graders he ever offered after seeing his release in an Ohio State camp. After C.J. Stroud emerged as the starter at OSU, Ewers transferred to Texas following Sarkisian being hired.

“He’s had a great career at Texas and a lot of people here still have good relationships with him and think the world of him,” Day said.

Sarkisian said Ewers’ growth in the Texas program since arriving from Columbus was evident in his resiliency in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, delivering two late touchdown passes to rally the Longhorns.

“To watch him grow into the leader that he’s grown into for us, his ability to have the poise and composure he has, not only on the field, but off the field, to look into the face of adversity and come out on the other side of it time and time again,” Sarkisian said. “To be at his best when his best was needed, similar to the Peach Bowl there at the end of the game and in overtime, I think that’s all a seismic shift from a maturity standpoint, physically and mentally.”

And Sarkisian said being the last remaining SEC team in the playoff in their first year in the league is something the Longhorns take pride in.

“I really believe this is a premier football conference in America because of the week-in, week-out task that it requires physically and mentally,” Sarkisian said. “I know unfortunately for Georgia, they lost their starting quarterback in the SEC championship game, and I’m sure other teams in our conference had to endure things that can take their toll on your team, and that’s no excuse. At the end of the day, we have to find a way to navigate our ways through it, but to be here on this stage to be back in the final four wearing that SEC patch on our jersey, we’re going to do our best to represent it because this is a heck of a conference.”

Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke played the entire 2024 season with a torn ACL, his agent, Casey Muir of Octagon, told ESPN on Friday.

Rourke will undergo surgery next week to repair the tear in his right knee ahead of the NFL draft. Rourke, who suffered the injury in August, first tore the same ACL during the 2022 season while at Ohio.

This season, the Canadian native led Indiana to a school-record 11 wins and an appearance in the College Football Playoff. He passed for 3,042 yards with 29 touchdowns and five interceptions, had the fifth-best QBR in the country at 85.2, and finished ninth in voting for the Heisman Trophy.

Rourke missed one game this season after undergoing surgery on his right thumb.

Notre Dame knocked the Hoosiers out in the first round 27-17.

ESPN football analyst Mel Kiper Jr. ranks 6-foot-5 Rourke as the No. 6 quarterback prospect in the draft.

Rourke started three seasons at Ohio before transferring to Indiana. Despite tearing his ACL and missing Ohio’s final three games, Rourke was named the 2022 MAC Player of the Year.

He was a second-team All-Big Ten selection this season for the Hoosiers.