Pete Lembo Makes Case For Broyles Award
When special teams coordinator Pete Lembo was hired by head coach Shane Beamer back in the 2020 offseason, it was practically viewed as a sidenote.
Most college football fans rarely, if ever, ask the question of who the special teams coordinator is on a coaching staff, and if they do inquire, it's generally for consequential reasons.
Those people, however, won't be found in South Carolina's fanbase, as Pete Lembo has not only made an enormous on the players and his fellow coaches, he's become a name that will live in Gamecock folklore for years and decades to come.
Lembo is a part of a coaching staff who had to change the program's culture, ensuring everyone is doing all of the little things right, both on and off the field.
The unit where those little things are most amplified is special teams, and when the morale of a program sinks to a low point as South Carolina's did after winning just two games in 2020, the lowest win total in over two decades, it'll take time for change to be implemented.
Two seasons later, South Carolina is now widely recognized as possessing the most efficient special teams unit in the whole sport, and on Saturday against Clemson, they showed why.
You have to start with punter Kai Kroeger, who averaged over 50 yards a punt on seven kicks, with an unfathomable five downed inside the Tigers' twenty yard-line. He flipped the field all day and will have a shot to win a national award himself, as he's currently in contention for the Ray Guy Award.
Kicker Mitch Jeter, who hadn't attempted a field goal all game, trotted out in the fourth quarter and was as calm as a cucumber as he nailed a 35-yard field goal, giving the Gamecocks the lead for the first time all day, one that wouldn't be overcome.
Wide receiver Ahmarean Brown became the Gamecocks' emergency punt returner after Josh Vann went down with a freakish knee injury just ten minutes into the contest.
He would make one of the most underrated plays of the game as early as the third quarter. He would pick up a short punt by Aidan Swanson and take advantage of Clemson's lackadaisical coverage, taking the return down to Clemson's 26 yard-line, which propelled South Carolina to its third touchdown on Saturday.
Lembo has made his case as the best assistant in college football this season because he's remolded South Carolina's special teams unit to where it's officially become Beamer Ball 2.0.
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