Bluffton's team charter bus plunged off a highway ramp in the Atlanta area around 5:40 a.m. Friday and slammed into the pavement below, killing at least six people, the Associated Press reported.

The bus toppled off the Northside Drive bridge onto Interstate 75, police spokesman Joe Cobb said.

The university identified the victims as sophomores David Betts and Tyler Williams; freshmen Scott Harmon and Cody Holp; bus driver Jerome Niemeyer; and his wife, Jean Niemeyer, all of them from Ohio.

Beyond the six killed, 28 players and their coach, James Grandey, 29, were taken to the hospital. He and six players were reported in serious or critical condition; many of the rest were soon released. The players' injuries included broken bones, cuts and bruises.

The team was scheduled to play against Hiram, Thiel, John Carroll and Baldwin-Wallace in Fort Myers, Fla., this weekend.

Cobb said 12 to 15 people were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Firefighters were pulling people through the roof of the bus, which was on its side.

"This is a sad tragedy for the students, families, friends and Bluffton University campus community. We are asking for prayers of support during this time," said President James M. Harder.

"We truly are a close-knit community," Harder said at a press conference at Bluffton, where the last day of classes before spring break were canceled.

"We know these students on a first-name basis."

At a campus chapel service the night before the bus trip, students had prayed for safe travel for their sports teams and other students during spring break.

"Sometimes you take that stuff for granted," said Katie Barrington, a junior from Brooklyn Heights, Ohio.

Bluffton football players were working out in the weight room when they saw news of the crash on TV and recognized the logo on the bus as the company that all the school's sports teams have used, assistant football coach Steve Rogers said.

"That's when reality hit everybody," he said. "Everybody was in shock. Nobody knew what to say or what to feel." He added: "It hits home harder than it would if it had happened at a bigger school. Everybody knows each other."

Matt Ferguson, a freshman baseball player from Pleasant Hill, Ohio, said most of the freshmen had stayed behind.

"We were bummed out we didn't get to go," he said. "Now, we don't know what to think."