{"id":486426,"date":"2026-01-02T05:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T05:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/486426\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T05:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T05:51:10","slug":"jax-bulldog-club-reflects-on-sugar-bowl-tragedy-as-team-appears-in-same-game-a-year-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/486426\/","title":{"rendered":"Jax Bulldog Club reflects on Sugar Bowl tragedy as team appears in same game a year later"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jacksonville Bulldog Club hosted a watch party for the Sugar Bowl game, with some members thinking about the terror attack that claimed 14 lives a year earlier.<\/p>\n

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As the Georgia Bulldogs rallied to take the lead in the second quarter of the Sugar Bowl, cheers grew at Culhane’s on Jacksonville’s Southside, home of the official watch party for the Jacksonville Bulldog Club.<\/p>\n

One member joked they’d have to be peeled off the ceiling if the team pulled off the win.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the end results, several members are relieved it started without incident after what happened last year<\/a>, especially with so many club members traveling to New Orleans for the game.<\/p>\n

“We’re ready to have everybody in New Orleans hear us here at Culhane’s cheering them from here,” said Club Official Sean Stetson.<\/p>\n

Stetson has planned his fair share of watch parties for perhaps the biggest Bulldog Club in the country.<\/p>\n

While he watched the Dawgs from Jacksonville, he had the safety of his fellow club members who made the trek to New Orleans in the back of his mind.<\/p>\n

It was Jan. 1, 2025, when a suspect drove onto Bourbon Street in New Orleans<\/a>, killing 14 people and injuring dozens of others.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got some guys who are there now from the club, and that was, ‘Hey, go be safe.’ Thank goodness nothing like that happened again this year,” said Stetson.<\/p>\n

With the game involving the same team, on the same day, in the same place one year later, it had Stetson thinking about how much of a close call last year was for the club.<\/p>\n

“Our president was there last year. He was right on that street corner right before it happened, and walked away,” said Stetson.<\/p>\n

While it was on their minds, Stetson says many club members didn’t let it keep them from going back this year.<\/p>\n

“The thing that does come about it is, those precautions kind of get escalated<\/a> for the next year,” said Stetson. “Everybody goes above and beyond to make sure something like that doesn’t go down. It makes it an even more safe environment moving forward.”<\/p>\n

“You hate to see things like that happen,” said Bulldog Fan Jeffrey Totty. “A big celebratory event, then tragedy unfolds. We’re just trying to be on the optimistic side of the New Year and hope for the best.”<\/p>\n

Stetson is hoping it’s not the last watch party he’ll get to coordinate this season.<\/p>\n

“I think we’re going to make a really nice run, and with a little luck, maybe another Natty,” Stetson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jacksonville Bulldog Club hosted a watch party for the Sugar Bowl game, with some members thinking about…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":486427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-486426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115823947453975038","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}