College football’s biggest game will come to Atlanta just weeks after a deadly terrorist attack marred the highly anticipated Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
Amid heightened safety concerns, tens of thousands of fans are expected to attend the Jan. 20 championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Concerts and related events around downtown also will attract big crowds.
But despite the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans, some in Atlanta say they aren’t fearful and trust law enforcement to provide protection.
“There will be such a heightened awareness, so every agency is going to be more vigilant,” said Leonard Watkins, who lives in Vine City, a neighborhood near the stadium. “I think it’s going to be an oversaturation of law enforcement actually.”
On Wednesday, just hours before the scheduled kickoff to the Georgia and Notre Dame quarterfinal game, police said a driver intentionally plowed into the crowded French Quarter, leaving 14 people dead and about three dozen injured. The pickup truck’s driver, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an Army veteran who once lived in Georgia, was carrying an ISIS flag and acted alone, officials said. He was killed in a shootout with police.
Officials postponed for a day the Sugar Bowl and locked down the Superdome. Some UGA fans left New Orleans before the rescheduled game because of safety concerns, while others said they would stay amid tight security.
Soon, fans will turn their attention to Atlanta as it hosts the 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship inside the 71,000-seat Mercedes-Benz stadium.
City and stadium officials, as well as Atlanta police and College Football Playoff representatives, remained largely mum Thursday on safety plans for the upcoming game. They referred questions to a public safety news conference, scheduled for Jan. 14. A spokesman for the mayor’s office said that’s when officials would “outline the comprehensive plans.”
Atlanta is no stranger to hosting major football games, including the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship, Super Bowl LIII in 2019, and Wednesday’s Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, which city officials said “occurred without incident.” Police ramped up security and deployed specialized units to downtown and Midtown for the Peach Bowl.
Nick Good, 50, traveled from Arizona to attend that game, where he was met with lively crowds during his first trip to Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The Arizona State Sun Devils fan, who stopped outside the nearby College Football Hall of Fame on Thursday to speak with a reporter from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said he would have felt safe returning to Atlanta had his team prevailed over the Texas Longhorns and eventually made it to the championship game in a few weeks.
”No question,” Good said.
That sentiment was shared by Bruce Ward, a fellow ASU fan who ventured from Chandler, Arizona, to attend the contest. It was his first time in Atlanta since 1979. While his team lost, the 66-year-old was in good spirits after experiencing a “beautiful stadium, nice city.”
He said his only safety issue was the difficulty getting out of the stadium due to a lack of exits. But attacks such as the one in New Orleans wouldn’t stop him from coming back for another big game, he said.
“I’m gonna live my life and not worry about it,” he said.
Holly Beaudette works at Restaurant 10 Bar & Grill next to the stadium, an area she called “pretty safe.”
“I usually don’t see anything criminal going on,” she said.
Others, such as Scotty Forsure of Stonecrest, said they will be exercising extra caution around large crowds and big events after what happened on Bourbon Street.
“I’m kind of a little terrified, because that’s crazy out of nowhere,” said Forsure, who works as a valet in downtown.
The Atlanta Football Host Committee will also hold a variety events over the weekend leading up to the game. There’s a concert series at State Farm Arena featuring Lil Wayne, Glorilla and Camila Cabello; a free summit for educators at Georgia State University and a 5K/10K road race — all of which will be concentrated in downtown.
The Georgia Aquarium said it “has security screenings for all guests entering the Aquarium, security and police on-site, and security screenings for all events.” That includes a Taste of the Championship event, which it will host the night before the big game.
Horace Cooper of Peachtree City has frequented major football games in downtown. He said Atlanta authorities have experience with large crowds and threats, citing the 1996 Summer Olympics bombing as one reason Atlanta law enforcement “are already proactive.”
“By being in Atlanta, we always have something going on here,” he said. “We have a police force during the games that they are geared up for.”
Still, Cooper added: “You’d be a very naive person not to have your head more on the swivel and tell your family too just to be sure.”
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