MANHATTAN, Kan. – The Midwestern welcome Texas Tech players received as they entered Bill Snyder Family Stadium was both trite and surly. They heard nothing family friendly about the greeting from the purple people.

“We walk down and everybody was chanting Overrated, overrated!”’ Tech running back Baron Batch said. “Maybe we are. Honestly, I don’t care if that’s what people think, because we’re winning. All we can control is just going out and winning the next ball game, and we’ve been doing that.”

Kansas State wide receiver Aubrey Quarles (89) and Tech cornerback Jamar Wall battle for a tipped pass, which fell incomplete.

Tech players are neither adamant nor defensive about their Nos. 7 and 8 national rankings, not even after a 58-28 thrashing Saturday of Kansas State. Graham Harrell says it’s too early for rankings, anyway.

All the Raiders ask is that you notice they’re undefeated.

At this point, Tech in 2008 is carving out a Kansas-in-2007 style season in trying to fulfill the yearning for a championship and a BCS bowl game. The creampuffs, followed by the mediocre teams, with all the serious business at the end. That’s not a slap. Consider the similarities. For much of last season, KU skeptics questioned the legitimacy of the Jayhawks, who managed to miss Oklahoma, Texas and Tech on the schedule.

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Get ready for the Red Raiders to face a dose of that over the next few weeks.

Skepticism that Tech players heard from the bleachers Saturday might not be the last. Oh, the Raiders’ litmus tests are there in abundance – during a back-loaded schedule that serves up No. 5 Texas, No. 21 Oklahoma State and No. 1 Oklahoma, all in November.

In the meantime, it’s sure easy to see a 7-0 start from here.

There was a time when opening conference play against Kansas State, Nebraska and Texas A&M would have been grounds for a call to the league office, raising cane about unfair treatment. That was the 1990s.

Now it means, by coincidence, the Raiders open conference play with three straight weeks against programs in transition. Kansas State under a third-year coach is followed by Nebraska and Texas A&M under first-year coaches. Tech, which has been able to perfect a certain way of doing things over nine years, should demolish both.

That’s not to say that the Raiders didn’t show us anything on Saturday. Quite the opposite in fact. Late in the first quarter, Mike Leach pulled out that old playbook favorite, the fourth-and-1 dare from his own 29. That one never seems to work, not even when the running backs are all the rage. It didn’t this time, either. Kansas State ate it up, banked a touchdown right after and it was game on at 14-14.

Frankly, I didn’t see the Raiders shaking the Wildcats, not the way Josh Freeman started out, hitting receivers left and right.

You know the rest. The fourth-down stop followed by the touchdown was about the last good thing that KSU made happen. Tech trounced the Wildcats after that. So let’s take stock: Some adversity conquered. A dangerous offense slowed. A conference opener won by 30. And some visiting fans quieted, not too mention seriously thinned out long before the ending.

“Hopefully, it’ll answer a lot of questions for us as a team and for some other people outside the team, questions they had about us,” Batch said. “It was a good statement that we came out and made today.”

Whaddaya say, Mike Leach. Worth the trip?

“A road win in the Big 12, that’s a big win,” Leach said. “They’re all big, especially against a team that’s as explosive on offense as they are and as good on offense as they are. I thought our defense, once they got rolling – after we gave up the first two touchdowns – stayed in there and kept playing. I thought they were real tough after that.”

Leach sized up his team as “better than average.”

To qualify as seriously good, the Raiders will have to fix some things. They can’t start a game allowing the other quarterback to hit his first four passes – bing, bing, bing, bing – and put his team in the end zone before breaking a sweat, as Freeman did. They can’t finish by letting an extra point and a punt get blocked in the fourth quarter, no matter what the score is.

And in between, it’s not a good idea, just out of boredom, to let the other team go 15 plays and 80 yards for a touchdown to start the second half. That tends to make Ruffin McNeill hoppin’ mad, and does anyone really want to see Ruffin hop?

In a more jovial mood after the game, McNeill apologized to the young female staffer who offered him a refreshment during his foul mood.

“She was the one trying to give me juice, and I went, Get out of here!”’ said McNeill, who also slammed down a towel and did more than a little barking at his players.

All for not being serious enough about a 38-14 lead.

They got the message and tightened things up.

They have maybe two more weeks to have a little wiggle room.

After that, the push to keep this undefeated record gets interesting.