ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — When Miami left Texas after an overtime loss to SMU at the start of November, the Hurricanes were at their lowest point of the season. There was a very dim forecast for getting into the College Football Playoff.
By New Year’s Day, after a Texas two-step in the playoff, the 10th-ranked Hurricanes (12-2, CFP No. 10 seed) were a win away from a chance to play for a national championship in their home stadium.
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Former NFL football players Ray Lewis, left, and Michael Irvin react after Miami running back Charmar Brown, not visible, scored a rushing touchdown during the second half of the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game against Ohio State Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr. (4) catches a pass from quarterback Carson Beck (11) before running int in for a touchdown in front of Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles (0) during the first half of the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal holds the Field Scovell Trophy following the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game against Ohio State Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)
Miami quarterback Carson Beck, right, is hugged by former NFL player Michael Irvin following the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game against Ohio State Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)
“It means everything to this team,” quarterback Carson Beck said. “This team has constantly battled through adversity, constantly fought. ... We’ve banded together as one. We’ve shown unity. We’ve shown connection. We’ve shown that we’re a family.”
They also have proven to be well-deserving of that at-large CFP berth they got without an Atlantic Coast Conference title. Miami made its playoff debut with a first-round win at No. 7 Texas A&M, then was back in the Lone Star State 11 days later to beat defending national champion Ohio State 24-14 with a penalty in the Cotton Bowl quarterfinal on New Year's Eve.
The Hurricanes play a CFP semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 8 against Georgia or Ole Miss, the SEC teams in the Sugar Bowl quarterfinal Thursday night. Beck was part of back-to-back national titles with the Bulldogs in 2021 and '22 before he was a starter. The national championship game is Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium.
Miami has won six games in a row since that 26-20 setback at SMU on Nov. 1, which was its second loss in three games after a 5-0 start propelled it to a No. 2 AP ranking that was its highest since 2017.
“It was a low point. And we quickly, we got together because we have really good people, and we work really, really, really hard. And we weren’t achieving the results that we set out to have, and that’s difficult. That’s a punch in the gut,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said. “Y'all saw the 5% chance we had to make the CFP. (Players) saw it."
A convoluted tiebreaker left Miami out of the ACC championship game while five-loss Duke became the league champion and then was left out of the 12-team playoff field when higher-ranked Group of Five champions Tulane and James Madison got automatic berths.
Keionte Scott, a transfer from Auburn, returned an interception 72 yards for a touchdown to give Miami a 14-0 lead early in the second quarter of the Cotton Bowl.
“I could just tell, when I first got here, the program was just very serious about what they were trying to get done. You could tell everybody in the room had their eyes on one goal,” Scott said. “I feel like Coach Cristobal does a good job of keeping us focused and keeping us on task. ... We’re never satisfied.”
The last national title for “The U” was in 2001, which was their fifth; Cristobal was a standout offensive tackle for the Hurricanes in their 1989 and 1991 championship seasons. The Hurricanes were denied a repeat championship in 2002 with a double-overtime loss to Ohio State in their last Fiesta Bowl appearance.
Before receiver Michael Irvin and coach Jimmy Johnson were Super Bowl champions with the Dallas Cowboys, the Pro Football Hall of Famers won the 1987 national title with Miami. Irvin also played a role in getting Cristobal to become a Hurricane nearly 40 years ago; he was one of the recruiting hosts on Cristobal’s official visit.
Irvin was on the sideline during the Cotton Bowl and Johnson was nearby when Cristobal acknowledged the coach during the on-field trophy presentation.
“He changed our lives, my brother and I. We were still kind of a nobody. ... He offered my brother and I scholarships. My parents, may they rest in peace, they didn’t even know what a scholarship was. They’re Cuban-Americans that came over and found a way and tried to make a living," Cristobal said. “Fast forward, almost 40 years later, and he’s out there on the sidelines supporting us. He set such a high standard. ... Really proud that this team is making him proud.”
Georgia went undefeated in the 2023 regular season after Beck became the starter but was left out of the final four-team playoff after losing to Alabama in the SEC championship game. The Bulldogs were SEC champs last season, but Beck suffered an elbow injury in the title game that required surgery and missed their playoff game before he transferred to Miami.
He was certainly aware of the possibility of facing Georgia when the playoff bracket came out last month.
“It’s hard not to think of hypotheticals, right? You look at the bracket and how it’s panned out, and you say, oh, we might play them,” said Beck, who is 36-5 as an FBS starter.
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
Former NFL football players Ray Lewis, left, and Michael Irvin react after Miami running back Charmar Brown, not visible, scored a rushing touchdown during the second half of the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game against Ohio State Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr. (4) catches a pass from quarterback Carson Beck (11) before running int in for a touchdown in front of Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles (0) during the first half of the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal holds the Field Scovell Trophy following the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game against Ohio State Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)
Miami quarterback Carson Beck, right, is hugged by former NFL player Michael Irvin following the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game against Ohio State Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — About 40 people were killed and another 115 injured, most of them seriously, after a fire ripped through a bar’s New Year celebration in a Swiss Alpine resort less than two hours after midnight Thursday, police said.
Authorities did not immediately have an exact count of the deceased.
The Crans-Montana resort is best known as an international ski and golf venue, and overnight, its crowded Le Constellation bar morphed from a scene of revelry into the site of one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.
Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said during a news conference that work is underway to identify the victims and inform their families, adding that the community is “devastated.”
Thirteen of the wounded were Italian citizens, and another six Italians are unaccounted for, Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told state-run RAI television.
Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire. Experts have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.
“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Pilloud said.
She later said the number of people who were in the bar is “currently totally unknown,” adding that its maximum capacity will be part of the investigation.
“For the time being, we don’t have any suspect,” she added, when asked if anyone had been arrested over the fire. “An investigation has been opened, not against anyone, but to illuminate the circumstances of this dramatic fire.”
Gisler said the priority until further notice would be identifying the victims, and added that “this work will have to take several days.”
Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris who survived the blaze, described “total chaos” inside the bar. One of his friends died and “two or three" were missing, he told The Associated Press.
He said he hadn’t seen the fire start, but did see waitresses arrive with Champagne bottles with sparklers, he said.
Clavier said he felt like he was suffocating and initially hid behind a table, then ran upstairs and tried to use a table to break a Plexiglas window. It fell out of its casing, allowing him to escape.
He lost his jacket, shoes, phone and bank card while fleeing, but “I am still alive and it’s just stuff.”
“I’m still in shock,” he added.
Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.
One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from a basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door.
Another witness speaking to BFMTV described people smashing windows to escape the blaze, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside. The young man said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames and likened what he saw to a horror movie as he watched from across the street.
One of the people unaccounted for was an Italian, Giovanni Tamburi, whose mother Carla Masielli issued an appeal for any news about her son and asked the media to show his photo in hopes of identifying him, according to RAI.
“We have called all the hospitals but they don’t give me any news. We don’t know if he’s among the dead. We don’t know if he’s among the missing,” she wailed. “They don’t tell us anything!”
The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, said Mathias Reynard, head of the regional government of the Valais Canton.
“This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare,” said Reynard.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was planning to go to the site on Friday given the significant number of Italians involved.
Three of the wounded were being transported from the Sion hospital in Switzerland to Milan’s Niguarda, the Italian civil protection agency said.
In a region busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, the authorities have called on the local population to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require medical resources that are already overwhelmed.
With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 meters (nearly 9,850 feet) in the heart of the Valais region's snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup circuit. The resort will host the best men’s and women’s downhill racers, including Lindsey Vonn, for their final events before the Milan-Cortina Olympics in February. The town's Crans-sur-Sierre golf club stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course.
The Swiss blaze on Thursday came 25 years after an inferno in the Dutch fishing town of Volendam on New Year’s Eve, which killed 14 people and injured more than 200 as they celebrated in a cafe.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin, speaking on his first day in office, said many emergency staff had been “confronted by scenes of indescribable violence and distress.”
“This Thursday must be the time of prayer, unity and dignity,” he said. “Switzerland is a strong country not because it is sheltered from drama, but because it knows how to face them with courage and a spirit of mutual help.”
Dazio reported from Berlin and Leicester reported from Paris. Geir Moulson in Berlin and Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the name of Mathias Reynard, head of the regional government of the Valais Canton.
A floral tribute left near the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge during New Year's celebration, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
A hearse car drives as police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge during New Year's celebration, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
From left, Mathias Reynard, State Councillor and president of the Council of State of the Canton of Valais, Stephane Ganzer, State Councillor and head of the Department of Security, Institutions and Sport of the Canton of Valais, Frederic Gisler, Commander of the Valais Cantonal Police and Beatrice Pilloud, Attorney General of the Canton of Valais during a press conference in Lens, following a fire that broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
From left, Mathias Reynard, State Councillor and president of the Council of State of the Canton of Valais, Stephane Ganzer, State Councillor and head of the Department of Security, Institutions and Sport of the Canton of Valais, Frederic Gisler, Commander of the Valais Cantonal Police, Beatrice Pilloud, Attorney General of the Canton of Valais and Nicole Bonvin-Clivaz, Vice-President of the Municipal Council of Crans-Montana during a press conference in Lens, following a fire that broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
A skier walks in the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
A banner stating that fireworks are prohibited due to the risk of fire is pictured near the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
