I don't generally do much quote-of-the-day stuff. If I did, there would be several candidates today.

Ruffin McNeill was giving Sam Fehoko all the tough love Fehoko could take during the inside running drill. McNeill wasn't pleased with Fehoko being misaligned and yelled at him more than once, "Your way might work! My way will work!'' And .. "I need you to play!'' The DC has gotten after Fehoko pretty good this week. He jumped on him the other day for lining up too deep and letting a running play come to him.

Anyhow, back to quotes of the day.

After Brent Nickerson got beat deep by Mike Crabtree, cornerbacks coach Brian Mitchell had this for Nickerson: "Grab him, trip him, bite him, something.''

And after OLB Julius Howard got into the right position to make another play, McNeill pleasantly chimed in. "Isn't it easier when we work on it? I don't yell. I'm happy. My blood pressure's down. I'm bragging on you. Good work, Julius.''

Jordy Rowland's day ended early. He got poked in the eye as he came up in run support during one of the plays in team period and was out the rest of the time.

Seeing Rowland outside the locker room after practice, looks like he'll be OK. And he needs to be. Though guys who walk on from little towns sometimes get overlooked, Rowland's worked his way up and can play a significant role this season. He's a second-team safety and a first-unit guy when the Raiders go to a six-DB package.

DE McKinner Dixon also didn't finish the team period. Looks like his right knee's bothering him again. He was on the bench with it iced toward the end of practice. That's the troublesome knee that caused Dixon to drop his weight down to 250.

Marlon Williams and Brandon Sesay were sniping at each other today during the team period. No punches thrown or anything like that. They were several yards away from each other. But still seemed genuinely peeved as they jawed back and forth. And DL coach Charlie Sadler called Sesay aside and talked to him for a few minutes.

Interesting in that it's the second time this week that two prominent players have gotten into it in a little different fashion than the typical pushing and shoving and "fighting" that goes on all the time in scrimmage settings. Mike Crabtree and Bront Bird got hot at each other one day this week, both on the field and then an hour or more later going up the tunnel after practice.

Mike Leach acted unconcerned by tempers flaring the day of the Crabtree/Bird incident.

Team chemistry was a strength of last year's club and will have to be again for Tech to live up to its billing. Maybe these guys are just tired of looking at each other after the 12th day in a row of practice.

Tech's weekend practices have been moved up: Saturday's is at 1:30 p.m., two hours earlier than listed. Sunday's is at 3:30 p.m. It had been listed at 8 p.m.

The reasoning: After tonight, coaches are dropping the 8 p.m. team meeting that they've had nightly throughout practices. In turn, the earlier practice times Saturday and Sunday will give the players a longer night off and more recovery time.

I'll have more to come later, but here's a quick synopsis of Tech's first scrimmage this afternoon at Jones Stadium.

The scrimmage was only 30 plays (29 actually), with Taylor Potts getting 15 snaps and Graham Harrell 14 snaps. The offense was sharp, sharp, sharp. Potts' group moved the ball from the offense's 40 down inside the 5-yard line, but then his 15-play sequence was up.

Harrell led the offense to three touchdowns -- a four-play series capped by a 24-yard scoring pass to Tramain Swindall, a five-play drive capped by a 17-yard scoring pass to Mike Crabtree and a five-play march capped by a 9-yard touchdown run from Baron Batch. They were all 60-yard drives, having started at the minus-40.

Some signicant things to note:
--The first-team defense wasn't in for any of the scoring. In fact, the touchdown pass to Swindall came with third-team defensive guys on the field.

--The defense just started re-installing substitution packages on Tuesday. Defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill used sub packages on just three or four snaps in the scrimmage. So, in essence, the first-team offense was having its way against backups running basic stuff.

--The most significant thing about the offense is that they showed the 40-second play clock that college is adopting this season shouldn't be a factor. In fact, it might well work to the benefit of the Tech offense. Graham Harrell was snapping the ball with 8 and 10 and 12 seconds left on the play clock, and they were never in danger of a delay of game. They ran no-huddle the whole time, and kept the rapid tempo that Mike Leach likes.

Some teams are putting in a no-huddle offense package, thinking they might need it with the clock changes. Tech has used the no-huddle for years, so there's little to no adjustment for this team, particularly one that has 10 returning starters and a senior quarterback.

Got this today from Dave Welsh from the Tech ticket office ...

Texas Tech has sold at least 43,000 tickets for all seven of its home games, according to Dave Welsh, assistant athletic director for ticket operations.
As of Tuesday afternoon, tickets sold were: Aug. 30, Eastern Washington, 44,000; Sept. 13, SMU, 47,500; Sept. 20, Massachusetts, 49,000; Oct. 11, Nebraska, 49,000; Nov. 1, Texas, 53,000; Nov. 8, Oklahoma State, 44,000; Nov. 29, Baylor, 43,500.
Tech’s annual “Take a Kid to the Game’’ promotion is in conjunction with the SMU game. The annual Family Weekend and Fellowship of Christian Athletes Day is in conjunction with the Massachusetts game, and the Nebraska game is on homecoming weekend.
Tech’s season ticket sales are at 41,173, breaking the record of 40,430 set in 2005.
Welsh said only 585 season-ticket packages remain. Those are priced at $220 in Sections 117 and 121 on the east side of Jones AT&T Stadium and $300 in Sections 9, 102 and 108 on the west side of the stadium.
Because of the record sales, Welsh said, the only remaining tickets for the Texas game are those available as season tickets or 37 that may be purchased as a part of a two-game mini-pack.

Freshman RB Brandon Reid has been missing from practice for the last three days. Tech coach Mike Leach said Reid went home to El Paso for a family situation.

"He's supposed to come back,'' Leach said. "He's going to go tend to something -- a funeral or something like that -- and then be back. I haven't seen him, but didn't expect him for a couple of days.''

Leach said it's his understanding that Reid is to return Thursday.

As you might have seen on lubbockonline.com earlier this afternoon, Tech established for certain today that McKinner Dixon is eligible to play this season.

My impression is many Tech fans had been holding their breath and hoping for the good news that they got on Dixon. Thing is, Mike Leach didn't exactly give McKinner a hug and welcome him back.

I'm trying not to put the same quotes in two places, but you might want to check out the Monday Red Raider Notebook elsewhere on this site. If Dixon is going to make an impact for the Raiders this season, he's going to have to work his way out of Leach's doghouse to do it.

--Taylor Potts completed only three passes in a 10-play sequence of 7-on-7. Some targets, he just missed but other people contributed to the missed connections. Ed Britton dropped one with S Franklin Mitchem closing in on him. MLB Brian Duncan intercepted Potts, but Mike Leach hollered that the receiver wasn't where he was supposed to be. Lyle Leong dropped a pass, and Detron Lewis missed another that could have been caught, something you seldom see from Lewis.

--Leong missed a couple of catchable passes during 7-on-7, though a few plays after he missed the second while trying to twist his body, Leong bounced back and caught a TD pass from Potts.

--Adam James made the best catch I saw all day, this one in the 11-on-11 team period. Graham Harrell threw a pass high over the middle, and James had to leave his feet and extend to pull it in. The play went for 27 yards. James got bumped up in the pecking order Sunday because Eric Morris was out. It looks like he's going to be hard to keep off the field. He has pretty good hands, pretty good speed and pretty good toughness. Late in the spring, he was playing with a shoulder separation, but still going out there and doing the job.

--Julius Howard hadn't really caught my eye much in the past week after he was just everywhere during spring practices. But Howard made quite a few plays today. In 7-on-7, Victor Hunter hit a receiver just as a pass arrived, the ball popped into the air, and Howard intercepted it. Good awareness. In the goal-line portion of 7-on-7, he broke up one of Harrell's passes for Mike Crabtree. Then in 11-on-11, I had him down for being in on at least four tackles.

--Tech generally closes out the team period with a few plays of simulated goal-line situation with the football snapped from the 3. A few notable things from there: Detron Lewis locked up CB Taylor Charbonnet, and the block played a big part in Shannon Woods' getting into the end zone as he came around right end. Woods scored again on the next play, this time up the middle. Next snap, DE Brandon Williams drew a lot of cheers from his defensive mates for stonewalling a to his side. On the last of six plays, RB Baron Batch ran it in behind big OG Jake Johnson. Line coach Matt Moore came in and slapped five with Johnson, telling him it was much better than some lapse he'd had earlier.

Just before we went to practice Sunday, reports started to come in about the death of Isaac Hayes, the legendary soul musician and Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Famer.

Hayes and Tech WR coach Dennis Simmons both are from Memphis, Tenn., which is where Hayes was found dead early Sunday afternoon.

Simmons said he knows Hayes' daughter, well enough that he would telephone condolences, although he no longer had a good telephone number.