Pete Lembo nominated for Broyles Award for nation's top assistant coach
South Carolina Gamecocks special teams coach Pete Lembo has been nominated for the Broyles Award, which is given annually to the nation’s best assistant coach.
Lembo has been with the program for two seasons, part of Shane Beamer’s initial staff. He had been the special teams coordinator at Memphis for two seasons prior to his arrival in Columbia.
Lembo has drawn national attention for his excellence on special teams. The unit has been lights out this season and all of the attention is well-deserved.
In his first season with the Gamecocks, the team blocked four kicks (three punts and a field goal). This was tied for second in the SEC, and tied for 10th in the country. In 2022, Lembo’s platoon is second in the country for blocked kicks with six on the year already.
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Lembo has been a big part in continuing the legacy that rings with the Beamers and special teams.
“There is a reason I got hired and I wanted to hire a special teams coach. Some people said ‘well your background is in special teams, why don’t you just do it yourself’,” Shane Beamer said on Tuesday. “There were different reasons and I stay involved because it’s one of those things that I’ve always been around. It was one of those that, if I can’t hire Pete Lembo, then I really don’t want to hire anybody. I will do it myself because I think that highly of him and that hasn’t changed in our two years here.”
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Beamer is also going to have to compete with other schools to keep Lembo in South Carolina. Beamer spoke Tuesday about how important it really is to keep him here.
“Really, really important,” Beamer said. “I think Pete knows how much I appreciate him and he’s been fantastic and rightfully so.”
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“He does a great job recruiting, he does a great job coaching and the fact that he’s been a head coach too helps me also. What we’re doing is really really special. I think when you have success from a special teams standpoint it creates momentum obviously on the field during the game but within the program and within the players to where they’re like okay ‘what’s next’. They’re looking forward to it,” Beamer said.
Along with Notre Dame’s Brian Mason, Lembo is the only other special teams coach nominated for the Broyles Award.
