Flurry of upsets gets the attention of Leach, Red Raiders

LUBBOCK (AP) — Texas Tech's Mike Leach made sure his No. 7 Red Raiders understood how they jumped three spots in the rankings without playing a game.

The rise was a product of the season's first upsetfilled weekend, when Oregon State's shocker over No. 1 USC last Thursday sparked a flurry that took down two other top-five teams in Georgia and Florida.

"We talked about just like John Wooden says, it's important to respect everyone and fear no one," Leach said. "If you don't respect everyone, any of them can beat you. If you fear anybody, then you can't have great victories like Oregon State did."

Texas Tech (4-0) has its highest ranking since 1976, when it was No. 5 for three weeks. Not that defensive back Darcel McBath noticed. He's trying to follow his coach's creed: keep noses out of newspapers, off television screens and away from Internet sports sites.

"I haven't really looked at it today," McBath said Monday of the ranking. "Some people had some newspapers in class, but I didn't really want to look. I don't Google us or anything. I just try to stay out of it and keep my team out of it."

The Red Raiders will get an immediate test of their focus. With potentially huge games against Big 12 powers Texas and Oklahoma later in the season, they open conference play Saturday at Kansas State (3-1).

Leach, who has said this could be his best team at Texas Tech, whittles the challenges down, rather than let his players get carried away by rankings and media coverage, and what could be.

"They just need to go out and play well," Leach said. "Try to get better each day, each week, because there isn't any magic formula. If there's some better way to do (practice), we would have been doing it all along."

Texas Tech had opportunities in previous years to gain respect as a top-tier program only to let them slip away. Take 2005 when the Red Raiders were 6-0 and ranked 10th heading into Austin to play No. 2 Texas.

The Red Raiders lost big, 52- 17, and got no higher than No. 13 the rest of that season. Texas went unbeaten en route to the national title.

"We kind of took it in too much, were reading too many newspaper articles," McBath said. "I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen this year."

Texas Tech swept Kansas State the last time the Wildcats were on the schedule in 2004-05. But Kansas State has taken a liking to beating top 10 teams from Texas recently. The Longhorns were ranked fourth and seventh the past two seasons when they lost to the Wildcats.

That's one more win than Leach has in eight tries against Texas (he's been outscored 349- 218), but the Red Raiders have frequently stumbled long before they played the Longhorns or Sooners. Missouri and Colorado beat the Red Raiders in back-toback games the past two seasons.

Few would argue that Tech's nonconference schedule was much of a test. Although they outscored their opponents 183- 64, there isn't a winning record among the four lower-tier programs.

Even though the Red Raiders have won three straight against Kansas State, they should be tested in Manhattan. They're probably glad this trip wasn't last week after what they watched.

"The way college football looked, I'm glad we had a day off," defensive end Jake Ratliff said.