Memphis Special Teams Coordinator Pete Lembo is entering his second season at Memphis. Under Lembo's tutelage the Tigers went from being the 59th ranked team in Special Teams efficiency to being #2.

Pete played high school ball in Staten Island, NY. He went on to play college ball at Georgetown. He got his college coaching start at Albany as a GA and spent two seasons there before getting the tight end coaching job at Dartmouth. He spent one season as the offensive coordinator at Hampden-Sydney before getting the offensive line coaching job at Lehigh.

In 2001 Lehigh promoted him to head coach. He went 11-1 in his first season and got the Mountain Hawks to quarterfinals of the D-1AA playoffs. He spend five seasons at Lehigh and never had a losing season. His record was 44-14 in his time at Lehigh.

He then went to Elon to try and rebuild that program. The Phoenix won just 3 games the year before Lembo took over. He nearly doubled their win total in just one season going 5-6. They were competitive in 5 of their 6 losses and 3 of those losses were by 10 points or less. That would be his only losing season at Elon.

One man who went up against Coach Lembo was former Richmond head coach Mike London.

"You know what? I think Coach Lembo was the original sweater vest guy more than Jim Tressel (laughing). In all seriousness though, Coach Lembo is a great guy. He did it the right way at Elon. His teams were always very well prepared and disciplined. His teams were very well coached."

What was the best thing about coaching against Coach Lembo?

"I got to go back and check but I think my first win at Richmond was against Pete and Elon (laughing). Now, he'll probably have all the stats and everything but I believe my first win was against him so that was the best thing about coaching against him."

We checked and Mike's Richmond team did beat Pete's Elon team 28-10.

In 2011 he was hired at Ball State to get the Cardinals back to winning ways. Once again he made an immediate impact. He won 6 games in his first year and the Cardinals were bowl eligible for the first time in 3 years. He was only the 2nd head coach in Ball State history to coach them to back-to-back bowl games.

A player that knew Lembo well was Ball State quarterback Keith Wenning. Wenning thrived under Coach Lembo. He became Ball States all-time leader in passing yards and touchdowns and still holds those records today. How was it playing for Lembo?

“It was great. We had a great appreciation for each other. He allowed me to handle the offense and take complete control on the field as a QB and Captain. Coach Lembo is definitely a history buff, and was always relating stuff to history. A couple things that come to mind when thinking about playing for him as a head coach: Competitive, Fiery, Very Knowledgable.”

2016 saw a new challenge for him. He had never coached in the Power 5 ranks. He joined the staff at Maryland as the special teams coach and the Terps became one of the top punt and kick blocking units in the country. They had 9 blocks in his 2 seasons there.

Rice came calling in 2018 and he spent one season there before Memphis came calling. He instantly put his mark on the Memphis special teams. Coach Norvell left for Florida State and new Memphis head coach Ryan Silverfield saw the importance of retaining coach Lembo. Silverfield was a young and experienced offensive line coach that was promoted to head coach for the first time. Lembo was a young offensive line coach with experience when he got his first head coaching job at Lehigh.

Having a coach like Lembo around will give Silverfield a wealth of knowledge and experience.

Just how impactful was Lembo's first year at Memphis? He was one of the 41 nominees for the 2019 Broyles Award.

When did he want to become a coach? Why does he coach? Find out by listening to the podcast