By Chris Schumerth | @ChrisSchumerth
Sports Capital Journalism Program
NEW ORLEANS – For all the crushing disappointment that Nicole Massier and her husband Mark experienced when they had to leave town before Notre Dame met Georgia in the Allstate Sugar Bowl, there was the surprising discovery that they were not alone.
Herschel Walker was on their flight.
He was the star the first time these two teams met in the 1981 Sugar Bowl. At the end of an intensely-anticipated freshman season, Walker carried the ball 36 times for 150 yards and two touchdowns, helping the Bulldogs clinch the 17-10 win and his school’s first national championship as Georgia fans sang, “Glory, Glory Herschel Walker…”
But when Georgia and Notre Dame met again in the same building, 44 years and a day later, Walker had been posing for pictures as he and the other passengers left town on a flight to Dallas without seeing the game that brought them here.
The paid attendance for the 91st Allstate Sugar Bowl was a sellout of 68,400 at Caesars Superdome. The actual crowd of 57,267 provided evidence of all those plans that could not be changed. A postponement made necessary by the attack early on Bourbon Street early Wednesday morning made it impossible for more than 11,000 ticket holders to stay.
Nicole Massier and her husband Mark went to sleep just after the turning of the new year in the Royal Sonesta hotel on Bourbon Street. She said they were jolted awake by an evacuation.
They were both in “The Big Easy” after paying some $1,500 for two Sugar Bowl tickets. Neither Nicole nor Mark are graduates of Notre Dame, but Mark is a lifelong Notre Dame fan, and Nicole has since embraced the obsession. He was at Notre Dame’s last Sugar Bowl, in 2006, when the Irish lost to LSU. Nicole and Mark were both in Columbus in 2022 and South Bend in 2023, respectively, for the home-and-home that Notre Dame played against Ohio State, games the Irish lost by an average of seven points.
As Mark and Nicole made their own logistical decision, their three young boys were back in Arizona with Mark’s family. Despite a generous offer from the hotel to extend their stay, they left town resigned to watching a taped version of the game in their living room at home.
“He’s devastated,” Nicole said of her husband.
Other fans were more fortunate. If the 2025 Sugar Bowl had been an evening start, James and Julie Kelley may have taken their 22-year-old daughter, Laura—a senior political science and public relations major at the University of Georgia—on the seven-plus hour drive back to Canton, Georgia without watching the game they’d come to see.
Laura’s friend, a finance major named Constance Paris, had also made the trip from Knoxville. Her parents had always had split allegiances between Tennessee and Georgia, and she had flown down to be with the Kelleys for a New Year’s celebration and the game. On New Year’s Eve and even after midnight, the two friends had been out at Beach on Bourbon and a few other bars before turning in to their hotel, Four Points by Sheraton, where the girls had a room that looked out on Bourbon Street right next to Laura’s parents.
They all awoke to a blaring announcement to evacuate not long after a pickup truck was driven into crowd near the corner of Bourbon and Canal, killing 14 people and injuring 30-plus.
The Kelleys and Paris didn’t know that yet when they left their rooms, but they did notice that there was no music coming from the street, which was weird. They were discouraged away from using one hotel exit and ended up in the parking garage, where they waited.
For two hours.
The rumor was that there was a bomb threat, but the college students started searching on TikTok and found footage of the attack. Even after they were allowed to return to their rooms inside, no one could sleep, and the deliberations began about whether to stick around.
“I said, ‘I feel like I just need to sit down and cry for a while,’ said Julie, whose sentiment was also echoed by Laura.
Meanwhile, Paris was unable to reach her mother and sister back in Knoxville until about 10 a.m.
“I didn’t want to leave,” Jesse said, “because then the terrorists would win. So we’re here.
