Day 2 of spring practice is in the books and the rain held off for Auburn, which was in shorts and helmets again as it ran through a variety of drills and continued to install its offensive and defensive schemes Thursday.

Both players and coaches have tried to remind themselves that getting used to each other and the system the coaches are trying to implement, will take time.

“I woke up (Wednesday) and I had that look on my face, that frown,” defensive line coach Tracy Rocker said. “My wife said, ‘Hey, remember it was the first day.’ You can’t build a house in a day. It takes work. You know that.

“But a lot of times we want that microwave success. I understand that process, but everyday we’ve got to get better and approach practice with the right state of mind.”

The Tigers will take the field again Saturday (weather permitting) and might even do some scrimmaging, if they're ready for that.

"Well we’ve just got to see how far along we are," head coach Gene Chizik said. "Obviously if we scrimmage, we certainly don’t want it to be a sloppy situation. We have to be ready to do that."

We reporters got to see about 30 minutes of Thursday's practice, and I've got some video of drills that I'll get up on the blog tomorrow, so check back for that.

In the interim, here are some news and notes from the day:

• Chizik split up the secondary duties with Phillip Lolley coaching cornerbacks and Tommy Thigpen coaching safeties. Lolley coached corners with Chizik as defensive cornerback from 2002-03. Thigpen has a linebacker background but has worked in the secondary as well.

• Thigpen, on why he came to Auburn from his alma mater, North Carolina: "I had to look at it. You have to look at Auburn football. Mack Brown told me that. Gene Chizik told me to look back in history at the great coaches who have come out of here. If you want to make better on your career, Auburn is a serious job. I heard that from so many different guys. I want to be at a place where football is really, really important. This place? It’s unbelievable. When you talk to coaches (all over) the country, they told me you’ve got to go. It’s one of the best jobs in all of America.”

• Right tackle Andrew McCain, on this year's offense vs. last year's: "The chaos is much more controlled."

• Lots of good stuff today on Chizik and Co. laying down some new rules for the athletic center. I'm going to write more in detail of that for Sunday's paper, so I'm holding some of my better material for that, but basically, there are are no hats, jewelry or spikes in the athletic center. Plus, lockers have to be neat all the time. Coaches are coming around checking. From someone like Chizik, who is very aware of how he is dressed and appears at all times, this is not surprising.

• Left tackle Lee Ziemba has bulked up to 308 pounds from 280 last year. How did he do it? By eating 5,000 calories a day. Was it hard? "Not anymore,” he said. “It was at first. I made myself sick a few times.”

• Sophomore Mike Slade was working with the first team alongside Zac Etheridge at safety for part of Thursday. Mike McNeil had class.