By Jeff Walker | A-J SPORTS EDITOR

Bob Knight has won 902 college basketball games, has three national championships in 42 years and still coached the last team to go undefeated, so he knows about winning.

Knight also has developed close friendships with coaches and administrators in football, which has always been of interest to him.

As the Texas Tech football team prepares for its biggest game in the program’s history today against No. 5 Oklahoma, Knight offered his insight on why this year’s second-ranked Red Raiders have been so successful.

Knight said the formula started back when Tech hired Mike Leach.

“Tech’s season starts because Gerald Myers hired Leach,” Knight said. “That’s the most important thing to this season. That’s No. 1 because they wanted to hire (Rich) Rodriguez, the committee did, and Gerald fought (because) they wanted to start the whole search all over again. Gerald really fought that and he won and they hired Leach.”

Rodriguez, who coached at West Virginia before leaving after last season to coach at Michigan, turned down the Tech job in 1999 when he was the offensive coordinator at Clemson. Leach, then the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma, and then-New Mexico State head coach Tony Samuel were believed to be the top three candidates for the position to replace Spike Dykes.

Two days after Rodriguez pulled out of the running, Leach was named the Red Raiders’ 13th head coach.

The coach

“The reason why Leach was such a good choice is because he did not play a conventional brand of football,” Knight said. “He wasn’t going to bring that to Texas Tech. He wasn’t going to try and be Oklahoma or Texas, Texas A&M and Nebraska or anybody playing the way they play. He was going to do something different. That’s what his game was, and it was so ideally suited to this school in this geographic location in terms of recruiting that you could have spent five years and you wouldn’t have found anybody equal to Leach as a choice.”

The Red Raiders have been making steady progress since Leach’s arrival. Many will look at the offensive numbers, but the program as a whole has reached new levels. Tech has been eligible for a bowl game in every season under Leach.

The prestige around the bowl games has gotten better under Leach as well. What started with the Gallery Furniture Bowl quickly moved up to the Alamo Bowl the following year. In three of the last four years, Tech has reached what many would consider upper-tier bowl games – the Gator, Cotton and Holiday.

With two games left in the regular season, Tech probably will do no worse than a Cotton Bowl appearance. However, the Red Raiders control their destiny for a spot in the BCS national championship game. They also still have a good shot at another BCS game.

“Leach comes in with his offensive approach and it catches on and gets better and better and better, and we are very tough to play against offensively,” Knight said. “… That has been a tremendous asset to Tech football. He brings an offense that is tough to defend and the job he does teaching it, he does a hell of a job teaching it.”

The quarterback

“I think (Graham) Harrell is the best passer I’ve ever seen in college, without any question,” Knight said. “He has a great arm, just like the passes he made in the Texas game. He has the best patience of a quarterback I’ve ever seen. He just sits there. He doesn’t mind getting hit and has learned to scramble a little bit, get outside. He makes the best choices with the best patience I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t try to do the impossible. He doesn’t try to throw it through two guys. He takes what’s there.

“So many quarterbacks want to look like the next (Tom) Brady or the next Peyton (Manning). If he isn’t the Heisman Trophy winner, they ought to eliminate the Heisman.”

Throughout most of Leach’s tenure at Tech, the scenario has presented itself so that the quarterbacks learn the offense in preparation for taking over for their senior season. With Tech’s pass-oriented attack, and the knowledge of watching those before them, the quarterbacks still have success with only a year or two of game experience.

Harrell, though, grabbed the starting job as a sophomore and has improved every season, to the point that he is one of the frontrunners for the Heisman Trophy.

“Some guys wouldn’t learn,” Knight said. “Some guys, as they got more and more recognition, would try to bring more attention to themselves by forcing to make plays. That kid makes the plays that are there.

“Here, I think you have a situation of a coach and a quarterback who are about as good a combination of those two as has ever been in college football.”

The defense

“None of this would have happened this year had Tech been playing the same kind of defense that it had normally been playing,” Knight said. “The problem was Tech was scoring points, but others were scoring on them and they would lose a game they shouldn’t have lost, and that’s where Ruffin McNeill comes in.

“He has done a great job defensively. The offense would have been there. They would have set the same kind of scoring records that they’re setting now, but they wouldn’t be winning like they are now without Ruffin McNeill’s defense.”

McNeill took over following last year’s Big 12 Conference opener at Oklahoma State, a 49-45 loss. In a conference dominated by offense this season, Tech is second in the Big 12 in scoring defense, second in rushing defense, third in total defense and sixth in pass defense.

The Red Raiders are third in turnover ratio and are first in interceptions with 16. Nationally, Tech is 20th against the run and 46th in scoring defense.

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