Pete Lembo Attributes Buffalo's 2024 Success to ‘Less is More’ Mentality

Emily Van Buskirk | Jan 29, 2025

Kim Montuoro/G5 Football Daily

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Buffalo Bulls

This time last year, Buffalo head coach Pete Lembo was just finding his footing in the City of Good Neighbors.

He didn’t come in and immediately hit the recruiting trail. He didn’t make any cataclysmic changes to the program. He came, he sat, and he listened - a simple yet underutilized skill in the overstimulated word of college football.

“So often in college football you see a head coach come in and just scorch the earth because they feel like they need to,” shared Lembo. “On the contrary, I’m a big believer that you can learn alot and flatten the learning curve from some of the people that are there. So rather than go out on the road recruiting right away I took the entire first week to meet with everybody in the organization - 87 players, every coach, every support staff member.”

Lembo took that feedback, presented it to the players, added a little bit of spice, and produced a 9-4 season (just the third time in Buffalo’s complicated history that the Bulls have won nine games in a season), a Bahamas Bowl victory and ended the year with a five-game winning streak for the first time since 1959.

Lembo is also the first Buffalo head coach to win nine games in his debut season. The previous record was seven wins by C.W. Dibble in 1897.

The Staten Island native isn’t one to brag, though he admits the Bulls should definitely be doing more of it, as of late. Instead, Lembo attributes the success to simply being in the right place at the right time.

“The timing of me and the staff getting here helped because we certainly had their attention - we had a team that struggled last year, a team that hadn’t won a game in November in three years, a team that lost a lot of players to the transfer portal after last season,” said Lembo. “So I think these guys were hungry for a different kind of vision - there was a willingness to buy in so that certainly helped.”

They bought all the way in. Buffalo finished tied for third with Bowling Green in the Mid-American Conference, produced the program’s first Consensus All-American linebacker Shaun Dolac and led the nation in tackles (Dolac with 159 and Red Murdock with 143). The Bulls also led the conference in punt returns, with the speedy Victor Snow recording 217 yards off of 15 returns.

Plus the Bulls went 4-0 in November, a point of pride for Lembo and a benchmark of success for the program.

“I’m just extremely proud of how we finished the season because this was a team that was 0-9 or 0-10 the last three Novembers and for us to go 4-0 in November and then carry that momentum into a bowl win - alot went into that,” admitted Lembo. “There’s no question that the health of our team and how fresh we were for those November practices played a huge role in that.”

Buffalo head coach Pete Lembo celebrates a win in the Bahamas Bowl

Kim Montuoro/G5 Football Daily

Health and wellness became a priority in the program from Lembo's first day. Hiring strength and conditioning coach Ryan Horton was the cornerstone of that investment. Horton’s 20 years of experience and high level of coordination and communication helped build an Olympic-based strength and conditioning program that develops players in a holistic way, while leaving room for feedback and adjustments.

Something as simple as starting a morning workout at 7:30 am instead of 6 am, allowing the player’s to maximize sleep and prioritize nutrition intake when they get to the locker room.

“Coach Lembo and the staff have brought a unique ability to understand young people on an elite level,” explained Director of Player Development Keith Molinich. “From understanding and prioritizing sleep, nutrition and down time for players to relax, to making sure that all football activities are developed with a growth mindset.”

It all seems so simple - happy and healthy players means better football. Better football produces more wins. More wins means more visibility for the program and the school. More visibility means more attendance and better recruiting. It's the cycle of college football life.

“Coach Lembo attended and played college ball at Georgetown,” said Molinich. “The emphasis was 100 percent on education first. Part of that is not grinding the student-athlete to the point where you can’t get their all. Pete has chosen a staff with a player-centered approach. Health, both physical and emotional, is prioritized. Sounds simple, but it is not always the priority everywhere you go.”

It’s clearly working as Buffalo ranks in the top-five nationally this offseason in transfer portal retention.

“Next to Army, Navy and Notre Dame we had the least amount of guys go in the transfer portal which is an incredible statistic,” said Lembo. “I think Clemson was after us which is a program that really prides itself on having a great culture as well so for us to be grouped in there in that top-5 with that array of schools, that's a pretty strong tangible statement about the group of people that we have at Buffalo.”

Buffalo isn’t just sleet and snow flurries - the city is known for it’s rich, architectural history and strong blue-collar work ethic. The university ranks 36th amongst public institutions across the country and is considered a leading public research university, focusing on a variety of areas like climate science, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Players like tight end Nick Leonard, a computer science major and cornerback Kobi Blackwell, a computer engineering major are taking full advantage of that.

“I would say that Western New York is a very grounded, authentic, genuine place,” shared Lembo. “People there have a lot of pride in the area, they enjoy where they live, they want people to feel welcome, they want people to feel appreciated so I think what we are trying to do as a program and how we are trying to do it is also a really good fit in the Buffalo community.”

In the end, words like “fit” and “culture” can just feel like coach speak, which is why Lembo often chooses to listen instead. He shared that as he gets a little bit older, he is learning that less is more.

“There used to be a time in college football, probably up until five years ago, where you could have a four or a five year plan and be thinking about building a team for the long haul,” admitted Lembo. “I don’t think the ingredients have changed, both tangible and intangible but you really have to look at each year as its own entity now and really take nothing for granted. Fortunately we do have a lot of guys back, but we do lose some very good players as well so can the guys that are back find a way to get better, stay the course, stick to the things that have gotten us this far and a long way in just one year? That’s the question to ask.”

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