Lembo-Lembo dynamic special for Buffalo football

Buffalo head coach Pete Lembo has hired AJ Lembo as the program's director of player personnel, believed to be the only father-son tandem in those roles in FBS play. 

A TCU grad who interned in the Horned Frogs personnel department of head coach Sonny Dykes, AJ Lembo had earlier this year been hired by first-year East Carolina coach Blake Harrell as that program's director of scouting. The school formally announced Lembo's addition with a May 2 press release that noted he had served four years in the recruiting and personnel departments. Lembo had first started work for ECU in February.

But the younger Lembo now joins his father, who is coming off a record-setting debut campaign for any Buffalo head coach, as the director of player personnel.

Pete Lembo guided the Bulls to a nine-win season in 2024, a run that included five-straight victories to close the season and marked Lembo's return as a head coach for the first time since his final season at Ball State in 2015. He's renowned as one of the best special teams minds in all of college football.

Lembo now has at least one season of nine or more wins in each of his four stops as a head coach -- Lehigh, Elon, Ball State and Buffalo.

He was rewarded for his sterling debut campaign at Buffalo, which closed as the most successful for a first-year coach in the program's history, with a raise and contract extension. Lembo also garnered pay raises and additional money for his assistant coaches' salary pool earlier this year.

Entering the 2025 campaign on a five-game winning streak, the Bulls open their schedule with a tough, Thursday night primetime tilt on the road in Big Ten Country at P.J. Fleck's Minnesota program. 

Buffalo returns home to face FCS program Saint Francis nine days later before opening MAC play on the road the following week at Kent State.