ISU head coach Dan McCarney would probably like a break after playing top-ranked Oklahoma, but he’s not going to get it.

Coming off the heels of a 53-7 loss to the Sooners, the Cyclones next travel to Texas Tech to take on the rolling Red Raiders.

“[We’ll get] no rest this week obviously — we’re playing Texas Tech, one of the hottest teams in college football,” McCarney said.

The 4-1 Red Raiders head into Saturday’s 6 p.m. game leading the nation in passing, points per game and total offense, among other categories.

“They’re an amazing offensive football team; they’re improving defensively, but offensively they’re just blowing it off the charts right now,” McCarney said.

“They’ve had to punt, I think, 12 times in five games, which is almost unheard of.”

The Red Raiders will face the 2-3 Cyclones one week after their 59-28 thumping of Texas A&M.

“When you can put up 59 points on a tradition-rich, defensive program like Texas A&M, that’s really unbelievable,” McCarney said.

A lot of Texas Tech’s offensive success rests on the shoulders of quarterback B.J. Symons. Through only five games, Symons has passed for an other-worldly 2,467 yards and 24 touchdowns, leading the nation in both those categories.

“B.J. is just unconscious the way he’s playing right now,” McCarney said. “He’s got 24 touchdowns in five games, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of anything like that.”

Symons spent most of last season playing backup to Kliff Kingsbury, but McCarney thinks Symons is better than his predecessor.

“Kingsbury was sensational last year, but I think B.J.’s playing better now,” McCarney said. “B.J.’s more elusive. He can pull it down and run with it, but he just doesn’t do it that much. He’s just lighting it up and he’d be really fun to watch if you didn’t have to coach against him.”

McCarney and his staff beat a similar pass-happy Texas Tech team last year in Ames, holding the Red Raiders to 17 points, but his defense didn’t have the injuries that it has this year.

“With injuries, we have a lot of guys out of the lineup defensively that we thought we’d have with us,” McCarney said. “We did some things to slow them down last year. We sure didn’t stop them, but we made enough plays to give our offense a chance to get points on the board and eventually win the game.”

McCarney said his plan defensively to be similar to last year in that he wants to just slow down Symons and the Red Raiders’ receivers.

“[We have to] always try and strive for some turnovers and be good tacklers [because] they’re receivers are getting lots of yards after contact,” McCarney said. “It’s going to take a great team effort from our defense.”