South Carolina Associate Head Coach and special teams coordinator Pete Lembo will be the next head coach at Buffalo, per multiple reports.
The 53-year-old Lembo has been on Shane Beamer’s staff at South Carolina since 2021 and prior to his time in Columbia, served in the same roles at Memphis, Rice and Maryland. Lembo takes over for former Bulls head coach Maurice Linguist, who left the position after a three-year stint to become co-Defensive Coordinator at Alabama under Kalen DeBoer.
In 2022, Lembo’s special teams unit was rated as the best in the country, per Pro Football Focus – which made him a semi-finalist for the Broyles Award, given to the nation’s top assistant coach.
Lembo has three previous head coaching stops in his career, spending 10 seasons at the FCS level first at Lehigh (2001-2005) where he went 44-14 and made two FCS (then I-AA) playoff appearances, followed by a five-year stint at Elon (2006-2010) where he went 35-22 with one playoff appearance.
His 79-36 record at the FCS level made him at the time one of the highest winning coaches in terms of win percentage at the subdivision level.
Lembo then took the head coaching job at Ball State, guiding the Cardinals to back-to-back bowl berths in 2012 and 2013, as the offensive-minded Lembo’s teams were led by former MAC standouts Keith Wenning and Willie Snead. Following the 2015 season, Lembo resigned as head coach to take the role at Maryland
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