BCS Rankings: Top 10 Teams That Will Drop Before First Poll Is Released

The first BCS rankings will not be available until the eighth week of the college football season, and a few top-10 teams will not retain their current standing until then.

Since the AP Top 25 preseason poll, USC, Michigan and Arkansas have already fallen out of the top 10. West Virginia, Stanford and Clemson have claimed their spots.

Conference play will be in full swing when the BCS Rankings start, and teams will start to show if they are up to the challenge of performing at a high level every week.

Here are the teams that will falter in the next few games.

(9) Stanford Cardinal

The Cardinal shot up the rankings after a massive upset of No. 2 USC.

Stanford has a remarkably tough defense, and held a seemingly unstoppable Trojan offense to just 14 points in Palo Alto.

This was an extremely impressive victory, but this is the fourth year in a row that the Cardinal have beat USC. This is a matchup that always coaxes inspired performances out of the Stanford players.

But in the next three weeks, the team faces difficult games against Arizona and at Notre Dame. The team will not survive a road game against the Fighting Irish, and this will cause them to drop out of the top 10.

(10) Clemson Tigers

The Tigers are on the fringe of the top 10, and will not last long in their current spot.

The team faces an extremely difficult match against Florida State in Tallahassee. The Seminoles have looked dominant thus far.

While FSU may have faced soft competition, it has outscored its three opponents 176-3. The Tigers are talented, but the Seminoles are a legitimate national championship contender.

A loss on the road to one of the best teams in the nation will not cause Clemson to drop far, but they will be pushed out of the top 10, and will not be able to do enough to climb back in before the BCS rankings are released.

(7) South Carolina

The Gamecocks have had an impressive start to the season, and will likely start 5-0 after moving past Kentucky and Missouri.

However, Week 6 of the season starts a brutal stretch of games for South Carolina. They face No. 5 Georgia before traveling to No. 2 LSU and No. 14 Florida.

The Gamecocks will not survive against Georgia or LSU, and with two losses on their record, they will not be able to stay in the top 10.

South Carolina is victim to an incredibly difficult schedule, but that is the nature of the SEC. The Gamecocks will be the third team to drop out of the top 10 before the BCS rankings are released.