The Orange Bowl will be played as scheduled on Jan. 9, a College Football Playoff spokesperson confirmed to Blue-White Illustrated on Thursday.

“We will not be postponing the Orange or Cotton Bowls,” Brett Daniels, senior director of communications and branding for the College Football Playoff, said in an email.

Some have wondered whether the date of the Orange Bowl could be swapped with that of the Cotton Bowl, where the other CFP semifinal will be played on Jan. 10 in Dallas Texas vs. Ohio Statebecause the most recent quarterfinal game, the Sugar Bowl, was postponed for a day after a deadly truck attack Wednesday in New Orleans. The winner of this game, which will be played today at 4 p.m Georgia And Notre DameHe faces Penn State in Miami.

All things considered, Penn State will have a two-game lead over either the Bulldogs or the Fighting Irish after defeating Boise State 31-14 in the Fiesta Bowl on Tuesday night. However, it is worth noting that both teams had a week off in December. Georgia accomplished this by earning a bye in the first round. And Notre Dame, an independent, didn’t have conference championship weekend.

Regardless, the aspect of the time-out will certainly be hotly debated in the run-up to kick-off. That’s next Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET at Hard Rock Stadium.

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The new start time for the Sugar Bowl was chosen with the Orange Bowl in mind

The Sugar Bowl was originally scheduled for January 1st at 8:45 p.m. ET. It was originally assumed that the postponed competition would begin at the same time, on January 2nd. However, ESPN reports that both teams had lobbied for an earlier start time. For this reason, kickoff is today at 4:00 p.m. ET.

“The reason they landed at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time, three o’clock central, is because there is an extremely quick turnaround for the team that wins this game into the Orange Bowl, which is a week away and therefore has less time to prepare for the team that will play Penn State in that game,” ESPN reporter Laura Rutledge said on Thursday’s “Get Up” show.

“As you have said so well, this all pales in comparison to what happened here and certainly to the tragedy that occurred. But these teams had to think about the schedule and do what was best for the athletes and everyone involved, right. The 24 hour postponement? At first we thought that meant it would be a real 24 hours, it would be a game that would take place tonight, but we got news that both teams in particular were pushing for an earlier start time, as early a start time as possible today. “

Penn State is back in State College

The staff is certainly spending time preparing for both the Bulldogs and the Fighting Irish. The tape can be evaluated live during preparation for the semi-finals. Penn State remained in Arizona on Tuesday evening and flew home to State College on Wednesday. The team will leave for Miami next Tuesday afternoon.