Skip to main content

Lembo Leaving Lehigh

Today, Elon University in Elon, NC will be announcing that Lehigh head football coach Pete Lembo will be their new head coach.

They will be getting a head coach who has enjoyed great success at Lehigh. Coach Lembo inherited Kevin Higgins' team in the 2001 season and guided them to their first home game in the I-AA playoffs (in which Lehigh beat Hofstra, 24-21, in overtime). For his efforts that year, he not only won a Lambert Trophy for Lehigh (for the best I-AA football school in the East), but he also won the Eddie Robinson award for the best coach in I-AA as well.

Overall, the Lembo era had Lehigh in the playoff hunt every year, and had Lehigh in the national I-AA rankings almost every year. With a 44-14 overall record (incliding 2 playoff losses), you could almost always say "Lehigh is in the race for the Patriot League Title" and you'd have been right. Lembo is a very even-tempered, poised coach, who is a complete professional on and off the field. Elon will be getting a very good coach.

Lembo's fate may have been sealed by losing to Lafayette 23-19 this year, falling out of the Patriot League title and I-AA playoffs. Furthermore, Lembo had lost 3 of 5 to a resurgent Lafayette program. It's likely that Lembo would have had an incredible amount of heat on him from fans on South Mountain this year for that 2-3 record against Lafayette. It says an awful lot about how this program has progressed under coach Lembo that a 44-14 record with isn't considered job security. Yet, that's where we are. Wins against Lafayette, no matter how much they've improved under coach Frank "GQ" Tavani, are expected now.

I think you could make a case that Lembo was a victim of his own success. After having maintained Lehigh's status as a national I-AA power, delivering home playoff games and regular season sucess, all of a sudden the talk came of national championships -- and the Patriot League title was a given. But something happened. Colgate got just as good as Lehigh. And so did a program that five short years ago was in disarray - Lafayette.

Lafayette may paint themselves as "little Lafayette", but they now are as accomplished and talented as Lehigh, and seem set to remain so for the forseeable future. Losing to Lafayette when they were struggling as a program was unthinkable. Now, Lehigh and Lafayette are on even footing, yet fans still expect easy wins over the Leopards and easy Patriot League titles. This ain't your mother's Lafayette team. This team is great.

For better or worse, expectations on South Mountain couldn't be any higher. Whomever the next head coach will be, he will be guiding Lehigh through unparallelled expectations in a I-AA atmosphere in which it's harder and harder to compete. Early candidates for the new head-coaching vacancy would include:

* Harvard Offensive Coordinator Dave Cecchini (former Lehigh coach and Lehigh player)
* Stony Brook Defensive Coordinator Andrew Cohen
* Penn Offensive Coordinator Andy Coen (former Lehigh coach)
* Former Georgia Southern head coach Mike Sewak
* New Hampshire Offensive Coordinator Chip Kelley
* Delaware Offensive Coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca

Let the interviews begin. Personally, I wish nothing but luck to coach Lembo and his family in their new challenge. Elon is a team which has struggled mightily since joining the Southern Conference in 2001, so Lembo will be leading a complete rebulding effort. I'll be rooting for him to get Elon back to their winning ways.

Good luck, Pete.

Comments

Anonymous said…
It could be viewed as a very unsettling time or a very exciting time. I came into '05 excited about the prospects of what could be. With Lembo still here, '06 would not have been viewed that way. If Sterrett makes that right choice here, I may be able to say once again, "Can't wait until next year".

I wish Lembo luck at Elon. However, I, for one, look forward to the possibilities and do not view his departure with any regret.

I truly believe that history will view Lembo as a decent caretaker of the program and nothing more. He kept it respectable, didn't move it forward, and didn't really screw it up.
Anonymous said…
Jim Hofher the Buffalo head coach would be an exceptionally good fit. Though he didnt have success at Buffalo or Cornell, he was never afforded an opportunity to come in to a program with such a rich tradition and a very good bunch of returning players. I'm sure this commentary may take some pot shots, but the guy is extremely knowledgable, a class act, right for the job and out of work. One vote for Jim Hofher!
Anonymous said…
Though Pete is gone, the primary focus should remain on the fact that LAFAYETTE STILL SUCKS!
Anonymous said…
I hate to see Lembo leave but at the same time i look foward to change. Any chance we can get Higgens back? Probably not. I would like to see Mike Sewak for Georgia Southern come. He led his team to 3 straight playoff apperances, including 1 semifinal game. Although that isnt that great for Georgia Southern, that owuld be great for Lehigh. I believe he recuirted their current qb Foster and he is great so if he can recurit a player like that, i would loove to see him at Lehigh.
Anonymous said…
I would like to see the Georgia Southern coach come here as well. He has a tradition of winning in a tough conference. I would hate to see a coach get the job as a result of nepotism and cronyism. Just because you have Lehigh ties, doesn't qualify you for the big stage and the next level, which is where Lehigh needs to be. As for quarterbacks, we may have the best in 1AA already in house. Sedale is absolutely legit. I think a house cleaning would be refreshing and actually exciting for the players and fans. I just hope plenty of care and thought go to qualifications and not become a good ol boy selection. The parts for a great season are in place and I believe that the next two years can be something special. The coach that comes in doesn't have time to go to a rebuilding stance, he needs to get it done right away. I think that the Geoorgia Southern coach would be the logical choice, but I dont understand why the short list for a job like that would be so small. I think Hofher is a great idea!
Anonymous said…
What about former LU defensive coordinator John Luckhardt, a Division III title-winner with Washington and Jefferson?
Anonymous said…
I think experience is the key. We need a head coach who has been a head coach and won at the highest level. We don't need a youngster, to establish a resume.
Anonymous said…
After this season Andy Reid may be looking for work...
Anonymous said…
Same cronies over and over! Think outside the box Lehigh!
Anonymous said…
I like John Madden
Anonymous said…
we need first and foremost a super recruiter. the competition for players is too tough for us to focus on anything but.

Separately, it would not surprise me if it turned out that Lembo was forced out.
Anonymous said…
"Separately, it would not surprise me if it turned out that Lembo was forced out."


Duhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Popular posts from this blog

How The Ivy League Is Able To Break the NCAA's Scholarship Limits and Still Consider Themselves FCS

By now you've seen the results.  In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago .  Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth.  Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled.  Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season.  The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League. W

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

 We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season.  The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League.  In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play.  Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ .  I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care.  Every face was glum.  They didn't even seem sad.  More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked chan

Fifteen Guys Who Might be Lehigh's Next Football Coach (and Five More)

If you've been following my Twitter account, you might have caught some "possibilities" as Lehigh's next head football coach like Lou Holtz, Brett Favre and Bo Pelini .  The chance that any of those three guys actually are offered and accept the Lehigh head coaching position are somewhere between zero and zero.  (The full list of my Twitter "possibilities" are all on this thread on the Lehigh Sports Forum .) However the actual Lehigh head football coaching search is well underway, with real names and real possibilities. I've come up with a list of fifteen possible names, some which I've heard whispered as candidates, others which might be good fits at Lehigh for a variety of reasons. UPDATE: I have found five more names of possible head coaches that I am adding to this list below. Who are the twenty people?  Here they are, in alphabetical order.