|
By: Rich Rodriguez - The University of Arizona (AZ) Originally Published in the 2012 Coach of the Year Clinics Football Manual I sat in the back earlier listening to the lecture by Chip Kelly. You can see why they are successful. They have a plan, they have players, and they do a good job with their program. Most of the things I am going to talk about today are going to be about our offense. But I want to give you a chance to ask some questions. When there is interaction between coaches and coaches, and coaches and players, and players and players, that is when you learn. My first 10 years of coaching were at the small college ranks. I do not want to hire a member of my staff unless he has been a high school coach or a small college coach or a junior college coach at one time in his career. If you only hire those that have only coached at the big schools, sometimes they get spoiled. They are used to having a manager for each position. They have a water boy for every position, team doctors, and five video staff members. At the small schools, you have to do a little bit of everything. I did that when I was the coach at Glenville State College. We had five coaches and three or four volunteer coaches. We lined the field, taped the athletes, cleaned up the locker rooms, and did a little bit of everything. I think this can give coaches a better appreciation of the coaching profession. I have spoken at a ton of clinics in my coaching days. Several times after my lecture, I have had coaches come up to talk with me. "Coach, I am just a junior high coach!" I say, "Whoa! Wait a minute. Before you say anything, don't ever say that." It may be "I am a Pop Warner Coach." Are you kidding me? A lot of time, those coaches have more impact and influence on kids in their neighborhoods and schools than I do in my situation. In college, we can still develop kids. In high school, there is no question coaches can develop kids. In junior high, you are developing kids. Don't ever look at yourself as just a junior high school coach. Because the kids are still young, you have a chance to make an impact on those kids. Everyone wants to know about our system. When we first started running the fast no-huddle offense was back in 1990 back at Glenville State. We did not know any other teams that were running this offense that we knew of. What we did see what a version of the run and shoot offense that June Jones ran when he coached the Houston Oilers and Detroit Lions, where they scored all of those points. I had a quarterback that was 5-10 and he weighed 220 pounds. He was not a runner, but he could throw the ball, he was smart, and he was tough. I was a defensive coach before I became a head coach. To me, the tough thing to defend was the two-minute drill. Have you ever seen a team that does nothing for the first part of the game? Then, when there are two minutes left in the game, they go up and down the field. I wanted to know why they did not do this the whole game. So, that is what we tried to do. We were going to run the two-minute drill the whole game. It did not make a lot of difference at that time because we only had 500 people in the stands, and if they got upset, who cared? Running the run-and-shoot offense, Warren Moon set the record for the NFL for the number of times he got sacked. He would open up with the 5 o'clock step, then take the 6 o'clock step. Defenses blitzed him from the backside because he never did see them coming. That was because he was under the center with his head turned. I decided I could take my quarterback and put him in the shotgun and get five fat players to line up in front of the defense. They got run over, but it slowed the defense down. Now our quarterback will have a chance to see what is coming. Once thing that Coach Kelly mentioned in his lecture - and I wanted to talk about it earlier - once the ball is snapped, it is out of the hands of the coach. Right - once the ball is snapped, it is those kids making plays, tackles, and doing everything. Up and until the ball is snapped, you have some control. All coaches are control freaks - every one of us. So, why not get as much control as you can until the ball is snapped? One thing you can control the most is conditioning. Chip Kelly mentioned it earlier: the single most overlooked factor in football is conditioning. Nothing else is even close. Everyone works on the fundamentals, but conditioning is the most important factor in football. You may say "I do not want to coach a cross- country team." You are not just going to run sprints of 40 yards or 100 yards or run miles in practice. How do you get in your conditioning? You get your conditioning in how you practice. It is the same way that the University of Oregon does it—by the way you practice. We do the same thing as well. We are going to get in our conditioning in the way we practice. We hear coaches talk about the kid that runs a 4.6 or 4.7 for the 40-yard sprint. Does he run that same time for seven or eight times in a row? Can he run those times back-to-back? You can control conditioning by the way you practice. You control it by how your kids train in the summer. In the old days, we never worked out in the summer. We did to some extent, but now kids do work out in the summer. If they are competitive, they want to play. Coaches will say they have a voluntary workout. What the heck is a voluntary workout? If they are going to play, they are going to work out. Back a few years ago, we would call our players in and talk with them at the end of the spring session. We would ask them what they were going to do for the summer. Now we do not even ask them what they are going to do for the summer. We know they are going to work out because they want to start and they want to play in the fall. The two greatest motivators are money and playing time. We are not paying them, but they want to play. What are they going to do to make sure they play? They are going to work out in the summer and they are going to do conditioning drills. The point I am making is this: don't overlook the conditioning factor. This is especially true when you start playing the games. When you start the season and are playing games, you run the fine line of determining if the players need rest more than conditioning. You want their legs fresh on game day. If you practice with conditioning at the forefront of your mind, your players will always be in shape. When you start playing games and the starters are playing 75 to 80 plays per game, you must remember the backups and subs are not getting the same conditioning. They may need to get more reps so they will be in condition when they get their chance. At times, you will see a starter get hurt and the sub comes in and is not as effective because he is not in very good shape. GOALS OF OUR OFFENSE Create mismatches and get the ball in the hands of the play makers from the shotgun. Why the shotgun formation? I do not care what you run. Whatever formation you run, you must have the answers. You must know what you are doing. Don't just grab-bag and pick something at random. You must know how to fix your problems, and it does not matter what offense of defense you use. Here are the reasons I like the shotgun. You remember when I told you we had a 5-10 quarterback when I first started coaching the spread offense? Think about it, if I am a quarterback and I am up at the line of scrimmage under the center, it is hard to see everything. One of the most important things for a quarterback beside his accuracy, and footwork is his vision. I am talking about the quarterback's eyes. For our quarterback, he must be able to see the entire field before the snap and after the snap. When the quarterback under center looks right and left, he is fine. He may not see everything very clear. If he backs up five yards, he can see things much clearer. It is a lot better vision for the quarterback. His vision is better in the shotgun. In a game, the quarterback throws a pick and then comes over to the bench. The first thing the coach does is to jump his butt. "Why did you throw the ball to them?" What is the first thing the quarterback is going to tell his coach? "I did not see that man." No kidding! The truth is, he probably did not see the man. It may be because his eyes were not in the right spot. The first thing you want to know if you are running the shotgun or spread offense is this: Where are his eyes focused? We have this neat little camera that is something that can help you with quarterbacks. We started doing this about five years ago. Our video staff bought a small video camera and taped it to the helmet of our quarterback. You can get these cameras for $99 now. You tape the camera to his head with duct tape. We would turn on the camera before the snap and after the snap to find out where the quarterback's eyes were focused. Was he looking down at the ground, were his eyes up, or was he looking at something different? You can see where his eyes are focused at all times. After practice, we would have the video staff incorporate it into the video system. When we showed them a play, we would run a tight copy, a wide copy, and then the quarterback cam copy. This was only for the quarterbacks' meeting room. The quarterback can see what he is looking at during each play. If it were me and I was just starting out coaching, I would get a small camera and tape it to his head so you can see where he is looking. He could watch the film as well. He can see where his eyes are focused. The most important aspect is his vision. When he can see where his eyes are focused, he can make a better read. How many of you in here run the spread offense? Quite a few run the spread. Back in the days, there were only a few teams that ran the spread. It was really fun for 10 years when we were at Glenville State. There was only a handful of teams running the spread that we knew of. We did not see a lot of sophisticated defense back then. Nowadays, it seems that over half of the teams run some type of spread offense. The difference in the spread that we run is the fact that the quarterback has to make a decision before the snap. They have to see the field before the snap. Most times, they have to make a decision after the snap on just about every play. This is true on run and on the pass. If it is a run, does he keep the ball, or does he hand the ball off, or does he throw a bubble screen pass, and does he throw the ball to the right receiver? The spread offense forces the defense to defend all skill players. if the offense lines up a player wide in the formation, the defense is going to line someone outside with him, right? How many of you out there coach defense? What is the first thing you do on Monday or on Sunday night if you meet then? The first thing you do is to line your defense up on the formations you will face that week. You want to make sure you have the offensive players all covered. As a defensive coach, the last thing you want to do as a defensive coach is to have little Johnny lined up all the way across the field with no one on him. If the offense puts a man out wide, the defense is going to have someone on him. That is the advantage of the spread offense. It spreads the offense out. The spread defense forces the defense to play its base defense. The single hardest skill to perfect in football is to tackle in the open field. The second hardest thing to perfect is to block in the open field. At times, the slowest man on offense may be your best stalk blockers. The fast offensive men get down field too fast and have to hold the block too long. We may have a couple of slow players, and we will tell them they are perfect for this offense. They may not be able to catch the football, but they can be great stalk blockers. You tell them, if they give All-Conference Stalk Blockers, you will be on that team. That gets them all fired up for it. The spread offense keeps the plays simple for the offensive line. I can look at coaches today and tell if they are offensive line coaches. Most of them have pancake syrup on their shirt; they dropped a little of the stuff on their shirt, and they did not want to get up early to hear Coach Rod. No, I am just having fun. The most fundamental position you have is the offensive line. Where are all of the offensive coaches? You have the hardest job on the staff because you have more fundamental skills to teach, which include footwork, hand placement, angles, blocking schemes, and all of the other things. You have more to teach and to perfect than any other position. I have coached quarterbacks for a long time, and I know you have more to do. We want to keep it simple f or the offensive linemen. We are going to work the offensive line, but we are going to treat them better than they have ever been treated. We want to keep things simple for the linemen because they have so much going on in such a short time and in a short amount of space. We do not list goals for the number of points we want to score or anything like that. We want to score whatever it takes to win the game. All of those stats are clinic talk. We do not make playbooks anymore because that information gets on the Internet.' found out one of my playbooks has been on the Internet for 20 years. We have two goals. They are score and win. Those are our two goals. Here are the basic elements of our goals. The defense will have to play us all across the field. We want to play with multiple tempos. We have two distinct advantages on offense. First, you know where you are going, and second, you know when you are going. You may count the snap count, but we do not go one, or two, or all of that stuff. This can confuse the offensive line. They have enough to think about without giving them a snap count that is confusing. Our snap count is very simple. We used to call the "hut hut." I decided to change all of that when I was at Glenville State. When you were a tot and you played football out in the yard, how did you call the snap count? You said, "Ready, set, go!" So, our cadence is "Ready, set, go." That is what we go on, and we do not use any other terms. The defense does not know when we are going to call the cadence. We may snap the ball as soon as the official gets out of the way or we may wait to see what the defense is lining up. We may change a play or we may act as if we are changing a play, but we are not. We never let the defense know when the cadence is going to be given. How many of you change the tempo as to when you are snapping the football? If I were coaching the defense and played against a team that always broke the huddle with 17.5 seconds on the clock and lined up and gave a lot of signals, tucked at his jersey, and a few other moves, I would want to know this. If the quarterback went under the center and the ball is snapped in about 4.5 seconds, it is a rhythm cadence. If I coached the defense, I would work on beating the snap count if they never changed the tempo of their cadence. I would tell the secondary they had 11.5 seconds to disguise our coverage and to move around so the offense would have no idea where we were going to line up. If we were a team that huddles up because you do not want to give the play away, that is fine. If you do not want to signal in the play, you can still control the tempo of the game. How could you do that? You could break the huddle and line up quickly and snap the ball. I would break the huddle and wait at the line of scrimmage until the defense showed what they were playing and then snap the ball. I would mix up the system as to when we would snap the ball. When Spike Dykes was the head coach at Texas Tech University, they would break the huddle quickly and come to the line and snap the ball immediately. This is a neat concept. They always went on the quick sound so the defense could not disguise their looks to the offense. The offensive team can control the tempo. Here is our run philosophy. It is numbers, angles, and graphs. What does all of this mean? Our offense - run or pass - is based on this premise. It is simple. I repeat it every day to our staff. I want to cover one important point here. How many of you in here are head coaches? Several! I have been a head coach for 18 or 19 years. I still call the plays on offense. I still help coach the quarterbacks. I still mingle in the offense. I do not do much with the defense, but I know what they are doing. I do coach one unit of the special teams. It may be the snapper or it may be the bullets or another part of the kicking game. I still coach the offense. Other coaches ask me why I still coach the offense. One, it is because it is one part of the job that I enjoy, and second, it is how I became a head coach. It is your own personal philosophy on this matter. Sometimes, when you become a head coach, you try to oversee everything and you end up not teaching anything. One reason you became the head coach is because you were probably good at something. It could be coaching and teaching the linebackers or coordinating the offense. Then, when you become the head coach, you have lost your value in doing something you were good at doing. I have told our offensive coaches, if I do not have time to sit in the film room and watch the films, make decisions, evaluate personnel, and work with the offense, they need to come to me and tell me I am not involved in the offense enough to know what is going on. I am going to make enough time to do all of those things because that is the value I bring to the program. I always tell the young coaches to "provide more services than what you are paid for." When I was at Salem International University, I made $18,000 a year. Now I am making a lot more money than that, so I have to provide more services for my salary. If coaches were paid by the hour, they would make more money. Never forget this as a coach. As young coaches, do whatever it takes. No job is beneath you. When I got on offense, I looked at the two- minute drill and decided to go with the no-huddle offense and to adjust the tempo. The second part of the philosophy was to run where the numbers are. If the defense has four men in the box on the right side and three defenders in the box on the left side, I am going to run the ball at the three-man side. If we are throwing the football, it is the same idea. If the defense has three on the right and four on the left, we are going to throw the ball on the three - man side - to the right side. We package our offense similar to what Oregon does. We have a concept that we call go. Everyone knows what to do on the go package. We do not use a full field read package. Who has time to teach all of this? Who has the time to throw that pass in those reads? You can full field read before the snap. As a coach, you are going to look at the entire field. But after the ball is snapped, the quarterback is going to pick a side and work that side or pick an area and work it. How do you determine that? Where they are lined up and where the numbers are. We use the center as the midpoint. Our big running plays are the inside and the outside zone plays. We read the defense on those plays. If we have called the zone to one side and the quarterback wants to run it to the other side, he changes the play. Why run against the numbers? Run and throw the ball with the numbers in your favor. The second part of the equation is the angles. Angles are like a 1 technique or a 3 technique. If we are going to run the zone play, I would prefer to run against a 1 technique and a 5 technique than I would against a 3 technique and a 5 technique. It is easier to block a 1 and a 5 than it is to block a 3 and a 5 on the zone play. Because we have a better angle, we can run the ball in the B gap, which we call the bubble. Because we have a choice on where we are going and the defense does not know where we are going, we run the ball with the angles. If the numbers on each side are the same, we run with the best angles. If the numbers are the same and the angles are the same, we go to the wide side of the field if the ball is on the hash mark. In practice, our guys want to spot the ball in the middle of the field. In college, 80 percent of the game is played from the hash marks. It is probable true in high school as well. We are going to practice 80 percent of the time from the hash marks. Don't put the ball in the middle of the field all of the time in practice. If everything is equal and the ball is on the left hash, and the numbers are the same on each side of the center, and the angles are the same, then we are going to run the ball to the field or wide side. We have more grass over there. This is our philosophy, and we build our plays around this concept. We will run a total of 50 plays this spring. We run the zone play out of four different formations. That is four plays. I think 50 plays may be too high for us. We may not get to that total. The most important thing we put together after the spring is what we call the answer sheet. Coaches want to know what we have on our play chart that we have when we are on TV. Some coaches have it hanging on their necks, and it is a big sheet. Who could remember all of the things they have on that form in the heat of the battle. Our play sheet has the typical information: first-and 10, red zone plays, go zone, which is inside the 10 yard line. We have our two-point plays on the form as well. Do you know how often I look at that sheet in the game? Never! I may cover my mouth when we are on TV with the sheet. I am not worried about them reading my lips on the plays I am calling. It is because sometimes I forget I am on TV and say some words that I should not say. On the back of our game plan sheet is the thing we do look at the most. It is what I call the answer sheet. I look at that sheet during a time-out or between quarters. If you would like a copy of this answer sheet, I will send you a copy. Just write me a note at the University of Arizona. We are located in Tucson. Now the sheet will be blank because I am not going to list our plays on the sheet. Before the players report in the fall, we list our top two or three plays against all situations and types of defenses we will face. For example, if we see cover 4 against our spread offense, it means we have the numbers to run the football. We are going to have a few runs that we like the best against defense. We have two or three passes we like to run against that look. We list the plays we like to run against the different defensive looks. If we see the bear defense, we know there are not a lot of running plays we can run. We may only have one or two running plays when we face that particular defense. There are three or four passes that are best against cover 1 or cover zero. We list the plays we like to run against the Tampa cover 2 defense. We try to cover all the situations that we expect to see in games. We take a look at our conference schedule and list the things they like to do on defense. We create a category down for the plays to use. We can't list but about six plays because we can't rep them all. We have that on our answer sheet before our players report in August. Those are the plays we are going to call and we are going to rep. When we get in the games, we can refer to that sheet that covers most of the things we are going to see in a game. When I am in a game, I have a headset on and I am talking with my offensive coordinator. I do not have time to listen to all of the coaches during the game. The offensive coach up in the box tells me if a play is good or if it is not good. That is about it. You do not have a lot of time to talk in the game when you are calling the plays. When I was at Tulane University as the offensive coordinator, I taped all of the conversations from the headsets - from the press box and including the conversation from the field. Tommy Bowden was the head coach and I was the offensive coordinator. I may do that again this year. It was fascinating in that things happen so fast. You do not have a lot of time to discuss a great deal about the play selection. I would listen to the recordings on Sunday. I learned a lot about calling plays and how to be effective during a game with the information from the press box. We do things a little different in that we use headsets in every practice as well as in the game. It is the same thing Oregon does in that our practices are going to be quick and swift. It is not going to be long before we run the next play. We are going to coach the players on the films. Everything is fast paced. We want to run 12 or 13 plays in a 5-minute period. We communicate in practice on the headsets just as we do on game day. We have a graduate assistant with a headset on, and he is on the sideline. Our offensive staff has their headsets on, and they are on the field. We have the battery packs for our headsets. That is the way we communicate. It is a great teaching tool. We have three tempos. This is how we do it:
We have our regular tempo, which is the no huddle, and it is quick, but the quarterback will look to our sideline. People ask me how we know if the quarterback got the signal from the bench. I can tell by the amount of time he stares at the sideline. However, the quarterback must understand our system. You may have a problem with crowd noise on the cadence. We had problems with this at home and on the road. Our center ended up making the go call. He gets a signal from the quarterback when he is ready to go. He may use a leg kick, point a finger, or a clap of the hands. We always changed the indicator when we need to. The center looks through his legs to get the indicator. To change things up and to stay ahead of the defense, we may have the center keep his head up and have the guard put his head down and give the go count. The defense will watch the center, and when he puts his head down, they move around. If we see that, we let the guard make the call and the center keeps his head up to see the defense. Then, he gives a signal to the center when to snap the ball. If there is a problem with crowd noise, we have the quarterback call it out: "Ready, set, go." He can control the snap better that way. You can use the center to make the call if necessary. Our skill players are going to look at the football. They should never be offside. The backfield is going to see the ball snapped from the center. The only people we have to worry about hearing the cadence is between the tackles. The defense will try to key the signal and jump on the count if you just go on the same sound all of the time. We call a freeze and we do not snap the ball. If the defense jumps offside, then the center will snap the ball and we try to get a free play. In high school, if the defense jumps offside, they blow the whistle and call encroachment. How many of you here run the zone read? The reason teams run the play is that the defense has to play all 11 offensive players. It is like the option, but you are in the shotgun and you are safer. When teams started running the zone read play, the defense would teach the front side to fit in the gaps and the backside players were taught to run to the ball and watch for the cutback. Now you see the defense fit the front side one way and the backside fit another way. They have different ways to fit the front side and different ways they fit the backside. We have to make a couple of calls and adjustments to handle those situations. I want to spend a few minutes to talk about our profession. Coaches do not get the credit you deserve as a teacher. At heart, we are all teachers; that is what we are. We are teachers of young people, and we hope they learn more than just football. 1 take a lot of pride in our players in the fact they have an appreciation for what this game is all about. It is the greatest game that we have. Every day, I think of ways we can be better as coaches. I think coaches are better today than they have ever been. Part of it is because of technology, right? Coaches are smarter because of the advancements in technology. Here is a coaching point that we need to improve on. In practice or in a game, we see a player drop a pass. What is the first thing most coaches, or the fans say to the player? "Catch the ball." No kidding! Think about this. How is that helping that player to catch the ball? I tell my coaches not to say "Catch the ball." That player did not drop the ball on purpose. You have to determine why the player dropped the ball. "Keep your eyes on the ball. Put your thumbs together." There is a reason why the player did not catch the ball. If you only get one point from this lecture, this is one that can help your players and team. We are not going to say "Catch the ball." Give the player a descriptive point to help him catch the ball. This applies when a player misses a tackle. "Tackle him." Okay, how do you tackle him? "Bring your feet up under you. Bring your hip up. Explode up through the man." "Wrap your arms" is a great descriptive in tackling. Our game is under attack and, in some respects, rightfully so. This is because players are using the top of their helmets. Back when I played, we may have had a concussion, but we did call it a concussion. They were not diagnosed as such. The point is this. Our game is under attack from a lot of people because of the concussions. They are concerned, and I understand this point. The equipment has gotten better, but it has become a weapon to some players. Do not ever let your players put their head down. I am talking about both sides of the ball. I do not think the issue is the upper-body collisions. I think it is the crown of the helmet that is the main concern. It is when a player puts his head down that result in injuries and concussions. I think they should outlaw tackling below the knees. Anytime a player puts his head down, it scares me. I do not believe you should be able to run and make contact with your head down. When you make contact with your head down, bad things are going to happen. Teach your kids to see "what you hit and always keep the head up." A coach should never be put into a situation where he has to make a decision if a kid plays or not. I will never get involved in that situation. You are smart enough to figure that out. If the trainer or doctor tells us the player should sit out, that is what we are going to do. No question! We do not know how long a player will have to sit out because of a concussion. As a coach, you can never step in and tell a doctor if a kid should play or not. That is left up to the medical people. As a coach, you ask the medical staff what players we have and when can the others come back to the game and go with it. Don't let the players put their head down. There should be dirt and scrape marks on the face mask. They should not have marks on the top of their helmets. Check the helmet of the players. If they have a lot of marks on them, they are either banging their helmets against a wall to impress their girlfriends or they are doing the wrong thing in the game. In the time I have left, I want to give you a chance to ask questions. Question: How much single-wing offense do you run in the shotgun spread offense? I was talking to Coach John Majors earlier. He was an All-American at Tennessee, and they ran the single-wing offense. There are a lot of principles in the single wing and the shotgun zone read. To me, the zone read is an option play from the shotgun. It is a safe option. Instead of pitching the ball back, we are just reading the end. It is a matter of running at the numbers and running at the best angles. We want to run the zone to a 1-5 techniques and not to a 3-5 techniques. Question: How did you spend your time last year being out of coaching? It was very interesting. When August came, I did not know what to do. I did work with TV with CBS Sports. On Tuesdays and Wednesday, I was in New York in the studio. That was different. The most valuable thing I did was to study other teams. With the modern technology out today, you can get the game films off the Internet and put them on your iPad. I got most of the games downloaded to my iPad. All week, I watched games from all over the country. The hard part was doing the games in that I had to prepare for two teams. If you are coaching, you only have to prepare against the opponents. So, when I was broadcasting, I had to study both teams. I learned some football, and I got to see some other campuses. I had a great situation, and I enjoyed it. The best part of the deal is the Arizona job allows me to get back in coaching. I told all of my assistant coaches that we would have to take the opportunity to learn football while we were not coaching together. The one big point I learned in doing the TV was the visits I had with the head coaches on Friday. You could see the emotion and intensity in the coaches as they were getting ready for the game the next day. Question: Which team will you fear the most: Ohio State or Oregon? I do not fear any team we play. I think we will be competitive. I think the Pacific-12 Conference is going to be very competitive as it can be. We have a lot of work to do in our program. I do feel I am in a great spot. I do appreciate your attention. For what you do, regardless of the level you coach, you do a tremendous job. You are in the greatest profession in the world-bar none. I loved doing the games on TV, and it was fun. But nothing compares to coaching. It is the players you are with, the families you meet, and the coaches you work with that make this a great profession. The last point I want to leave you with is this. The most important thing from a teaching standpoint-coach to coach, coach to player, player to player-is communication. I think the same thing is true in your family. I have two kids: a daughter who is 15 and a son who is 13. They come to practice and they know what I am doing and why I am doing it. They know the deal. Throughout the last several years, when we left West Virginia and Michigan, they knew the deal every step of the way because I always communicated with them. This is the most advice I can give you. You must communicate. Right or wrong, good or bad, communicate so everyone is on the same page. Let's enjoy this game. Life is too short not to have a good time. We need to enjoy what we are doing. I appreciate you guys. Thank you. |
Insights of the No-Huddle Shotgun Scheme