Pete Lembo making strong case for Broyles Award

Pete Lembo’s name has become popular in Columbia, SC. But over the next few weeks his name should become even more popular across the country.

Next Tuesday, Nov. 15, nominees for the Broyles Award will be announced. The annual award recognizes the best assistant coach in college football. To say Lembo, who is in his second-year as USC’s special teams coordinator, deserves to be nominated for this award is an understatement.

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South Carolina ranks No.2 in FBS for blocked kicks. They rank third in kickoff return average and have one of the best punters and place kickers in the country. Punter Kai Kroeger has been named to “Ray’s 8” list five times this season, an award that recognizes the nation’s best punter each week. Meanwhile, Mitch Jeter hasn’t missed a kick, following in the footsteps of USC’s all-time scoring leader Parker White.

That’s what many people see on surface when they think of the job Lembo has done this season. But there’s much more to it than that.

“He’s obviously phenomenal from a special teams standpoint,” said Shane Beamer. “He and Stanton Weber (USC Special Teams Analyst) do a great job. It’s so beneficial to me when you have a guy who doesn’t coach a position. He’s able to coach just special teams and then he’s able to interact with different coaches on the staff and the players as well and develop relationships.”

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Lembo, who is in his 31st season of coaching college football, has been a head coach for 15 of those seasons. Not only was he a 2001 Patriot League Coach of the Year at Lehigh, but he’s complied a head coaching record of 112-65.

“The fact that he’s been a head coach I can bounce ideas off of him. He understands the chair I sit in. In my position it’s lonely. There’s different things you deal with that people on the outside don’t understand and he does because he’s sat in that chair.”

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But Beamer says there’s also something else Lembo is very good at that may often be overlooked.

“The other thing that I don’t think he gets enough credit for is his recruiting. He doesn’t have necessarily a position to recruit but he has an area to recruit and he works his butt off recruiting that area and that’s opened up a lot of doors for us, particularly in the Northeast.”

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Broyles Award Dates to Know:

Nov. 15 – Nominees announced
Nov. 22 – Semi-finalists announced
Nov. 29 – Finalists announced
Dec. 3 – Winner announced

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