BCS Rankings Week 9: Notre Dame And More Teams With No Shot at BCS

Several high-profile teams had their BCS hopes dashed with losses in Week 8. Every major team begins the season with so much hope that it's a sad reality when the losses become too much to overcome. Here are three teams that won't be crashing the BCS party in 2011.

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Georgia Tech began the season 6-0 and reached No. 12 in both the AP and USA Today polls. However, back-to-back road losses have dropped them out of the BCS rankings. The Yellow Jackets offense, which was dominant in the early going, has slowed down considerably over the last three weeks.

The option attack mustered only 134 yards against the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday, which was nearly 200 yards below their season average. They have a much tougher schedule to finish the ACC play than Virginia Tech, so it's hard to imagine them rebounding in time to save their BCS dreams.

Illinois Fighting Illini

The Fighting Illini's story is eerily similar to that of Georgia Tech. A 6-0 start has quickly disintegrated with two losses to unranked teams. Against Purdue on Saturday, Nathan Scheelhaase was under pressure seemingly all day and couldn't make enough plays to complete the comeback.

Illinois now has three games against ranked Big Ten foes and would have to win them all to resurrect its BCS chances. That isn't going to happen. The Illini will still play a major role in which of their conference rivals get that BCS trip, however.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

The preseason expectations were high in South Bend, as they always are, and the Irish failed to live up to them again in 2011. Notre Dame lost its first two games and were written off before a four-game winning streak had the faithful clamoring for a BCS ranking.

With a game against Stanford in the finale, the Fighting Irish still had a slim chance to steal an at-large bid. But that ended on Saturday with a loss to USC. While Notre Dame doesn't lack talent, getting prospects to live up to their potential has become an annual problem for the Golden Domers.

Rank	Team	BCS Average
1	LSU	.9702
2	Alabama	.9627
3	Oklahoma State	.9240
4	Boise State	.8302
5	Clemson	.8240
6	Stanford	.8124
7	Oregon	.6877
8	Kansas State	.6681
9	Oklahoma	.6642
10	Arkansas	.6581
11	Michigan State	.538
12	Virginia Tech	.534
13	South Carolina	.501
14	Nebraska	.439
15	Wisconsin	.433
16	Texas A&M	.428
17	Houston	.368
18	Michigan	.342
19	Penn State	.307
20	Texas Tech	.201
21	Arizona State	.163
22	Georgia	.159
23	Auburn	.131
24	Texas	.119
25	West Virginia	.073