By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Former Elon football coach Pete Lembo was named coach of the Buffalo Bulls, who play in the Mid-American Conference, on Sunday.
Lembo, who’s Elon’s winningest coach in the last two decades, is a head coach for the first time since 2015.
His Elon record in five seasons (2006-10) was 35-22, with the Phoenix making their first appearance in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs in 2009. Elon had winning Southern Conference records in his final four seasons.
Lembo was Lehigh’s coach prior to being hired at Elon by former athletics director Alan White. He left Elon for Ball State, which like Buffalo is in the Mid-American Conference. His career record as a head coach is 112-65.
Since then, he had assistant coaching stops and held titles such as assistant head coach and special teams coordinator for Maryland, Rice, Memphis and South Carolina. In 2023, he finished his third season at South Carolina, where he also was involved in recruiting Cummings standout Jonathan Paylor (who chose North Carolina State).
At Buffalo, Lembo, 53, replaces Maurice Lingquist, who left after three seasons and a 14-23 record to join the new coaching staff at Alabama.
