Return of the MAC: Pete Lembo Bringing Big Boy Football Back to Buffalo
Al Jay Henderson is firmly on SOAP watch once MACtion kicks off in 2025.
Now let’s work the upper body with some pushups.
- Dolph Lundgren, athlete
As has been a theme with these ‘Return of the MAC’ articles, I want to start today’s piece with a history lesson. This time, we go back to November 28, 2020. The UB Bulls and Kent State Golden Flashes both stand atop the conference at 3-0 going into their matchup.
Kent State, led by now SDSU head coach Sean Lewis, has a vibrant passing attack and sports a dangerous running QB. Not to mention Lewis’ 5’8" stalwart in the backfield, Marquez Cooper.
UB, led by now KU head coach Lance Leipold, is one of the premier rushing teams in all of CFB. The offensive line is putting on a clinic each week; so much so that if the highlights were edited up and combined, they could serve admirably as a strength training montage with the amount of weight these guys are pushing around.
The Bulls’ lead runner, first ballot VP HoF’er Jaret Patterson is torching college football averaging 166 yards and 2.67 scores per game. He’s leading all CFF assets in PPG at this point in the year. Indeed, for all you new school fans out there, before there was an Ashton Jeanty in CFF, there was JP.
And if you peep the date of the game, you may also recognize that this weekend was the championship weekend for CFF matchups. Naturally, there is no reality in which Patterson played in a CFF league I’m in where I don’t have him rostered, so of course I have him queued up as a starter for the championship game.
From the very start I knew that this was going to be a day to remember. I tuck into my couch—once again with a hot cocoa in hand—and prepared for the titanic battle of two colossal Mid American programs (what more can one ask for on a Fall Saturday?).
Headed into this game, I don’t have any exposure to Kent State and my only share of UB’s program is through Patterson. My opponent is sporting a monster squad that includes Mohammed “Day Walker” Ibrahim, who was having something of an iconic campaign himself.
Patterson literally takes the first play 60+ yards and is tackled within the five yard line. He wasn’t even touched until 40 yards downfield. The Bulls hand him the rock the very next play and immediately that was 13ish CFF points on the board.
A quick three and out later and UB has the ball again with 11 minutes to go in the first quarter. Hand off to JP—he’s untouched… 30 yards later… TD. Well over 20 CFF points now with only five minutes played. At this point I’m thinking to myself that my squad has a chance at the championship belt here.
Kent State responds by scoring a field goal within two minutes of play. Queue up the Bulls’ third drive before the halfway mark of the first quarter—but remarkably they go three and out, giving way to Kent St. to score a TD with three minutes to go. No matter—that’s just enough time for our hero. With 50 seconds to go in the first, JP takes a handoff—untouched—to the house for a 42-yard score. My guy is well over 30 points by now.
Another 50-yard TD later and he’s over 40… 65 yards and a score later and he’s over 50 (WITH 2 MINS TO GO IN THE FIRST HALF). The score of the game going into halftime? Kent State only trailing by 11 points in a 24-35 score (every TD scored by JP so far).
Patterson moves the chains for the Bulls in their opening second-half drive and caps it off with another score. This tomfoolery continues all afternoon with Kent State responding through the air with their WRs until JP eventually racks up 89 CFF points via a 409 and 8 score performance.
The most remarkable thing is that JP’s head coach, Lance Leipold, was such a hater that day that he subbed Patterson out of the game during two easy scoring situations, where Kevin Marks subbed in. JP could have had 100 points!
Although, this was not unusual as Kevin Marks had accumulated 1000 yards the year before, while JP accounted for over 2000 yards total. This was an incredible program I tell you, an incredible program.
They were my favourite non-UGA program in the latter years that Leipold was there. Buffalo also being a city with tight connections to Canada/Toronto, was an easy fit. And I have to say, I appreciated the way they approached the game of football. Big offensive linemen… heavy rushing via individual players… these guys had it all.
When Leipold left, however, some wanker named Mo Linguist, now the secondary coach at Alabama, took over. Linguist took a perennial stud factory at UB and turned it into an absolute clown show. He somehow tanked Kevin Marks’ CFF stock the following season, and did nothing of note over the following two years.
So when UB’s brass announced that they were ready to get back to gangster ball via Pete Lembo, I rejoiced. But I didn’t know who they’d settle on at tailback ahead of time and thus avoided the backfield in 2024 drafts.
It took the new staff a little while, but they did, in fact, eventually find their guy. Fourth year player out of New Jersey Al Jay Henderson sounds like the name of one of those Leipold gangsters back in the day. That was power football baby. Big boy football. The brand of football we used to know and love in the MAC.
Al Jay didn’t even really start lighting off caps in defenders’ asses until Oct. 12, when he took 18 carries for 142 yards. Every other game after that he scored over 20 points save for one performance vs. Ohio in a blowout, and finished the year rushing for over 1000 yards and nine scores. Impressive given that he didn’t start until October.
Coaching & System
RB1 PPG AVERAGE — HC: 14.4 — OC: 15.21 (half ppr)
While Lembo doesn’t have any play calling experience outside of last season during the six year sample captured below in Table 1., he does have a history of calling plays in the MAC from his time at Ball State (2011-2015).
With the Cardinals, Lembo’s squad featured a runner who surpassed the 1000 yard three times in five seasons. More precisely, Jahwan Edwards ran for over 1000 yards three times. Outside of him, there wasn’t a runner who did it under Lembo at Ball State.
Edwards’ best season was a 262 carry campaign that saw him dash for 1252 yards and 12 scores. He also caught 29 passes for an additional 293 yards. From a pure TD production standpoint, however, Edwards’ 2012 and 2013 season totals of 14 were his best.
The OC, Dave Patenaude, was also in his first year with the Bulls last season. He previously called plays at Georgia Tech from 2019-2021, and ODU in 2022. Going back further, he’s spent time as the OC at Temple (2017-18) and Coastal Carolina (2012-16).
Patenaude had his own version of Jahwan Edwards on his 2018 Temple team, where Ryquell Armstead amassed 1098 yards and 13 scores on 210 carries.
Last year the Bulls ran the ball 59 times for every 41 passes, which was not surprising considering Patenaude’s average dating back to Temple is ~57/43 to the run. They averaged 69.3 plays run per game and 24.8 seconds per play (upper end of the middle tier of teams).
Al-Jay Henderson (6’0, 510)
2024 RUSHING STATS: 204 - 1078 - 9 (15.9 PPG)
The first thing I thought about when doing this profile was that Al Jay looks like another former UB runner in Kevin Marks, who also wore that #5 jersey as a long and lanky runner. If you read the piece I did on Jordan Nubin a few weeks ago, you’ll recall that in 2021 I spent a first round pick on Mo Ibrahim.
I also drafted Marks on that team and I have to say, I was equally perturbed by what happened to him during the 2021 campaign. Somehow, someway, the new staff took what Leipold had built and turned it into what can only be described as CFF crapola. They took a roster with a former 1000-yard rusher who was RB2 behind CFF legend Patterson and destroyed his CFF stock.
Thus, I hope to acquire at least a few shares of Al Jay this season to make amends within myself for the monster season that never was from the former UB #5.
Henderson broke out in his fourth year of college football last season, becoming the primary ball carrier in week six. As with all MAC players, his season-total numbers don’t do him justice, as from week six onwards, he averaged 22.6 points per game.
In addition to the rushing stats listed above, he also accumulated 19 receptions, 238 yards and another score on 35 targets.
Originally a C/O 2021 enrolled, prior to this past year Henderson had barely played, with his only other significant action coming in 2023 (59 attempts, 301 yards in 10 games). He was rated a three star prospect from Irvington, New Jersey.
From what I can tell early in this offseason, Al-Jay is climbing up draft boards. Once upon a time (February) you used to be able to draft him in a bestball round three/four range. In the latest one I just participated in he was selected at the end of the first round.
As with all players, it’s better when you can get them cheaper, but it appears the VP-draft philosophy of hammering RBs in the first several rounds has spread like a virus, infecting nearly every corner of the CFF community in 2025. Of course, this trend in drafting could also be a reflection of a poor returning WR class and a deep QB group, but I’m going to keep telling myself it’s the former.
I have a harder time justifying taking MAC players in round one as the returns you get from them in September are not going to justify the draft selection. Even when you look at a player like Jaret Patterson, who I would consider as the gold standard CFF asset out of Buffalo over the last handful of years; in his first three games in 2019 he scored around 15, 10 and 9 points (in full PPR formats) before going nuclear the following week.
In the case of UB 2025, they open the year at Minnesota, then play FCS school St. Francis, Kent State, Troy and then UConn. That is a good September schedule all things considered.
The first week will most likely be a dud from Henderson, but week two vs. SFPA could be one of his best games of the season. Kent State was one of the worst in MAC programs in 2024 so week three should be fine. Week four vs. Troy could be rough as the discrepancy between MAC programs and SBC programs is large despite both being under the ‘G5’ umbrella. And then UConn in week five to round out the September slate is completely fine.
From that sense, there is a stronger argument behind taking Henderson in the first round relative to typical MAC players.
Then consider that the ghost of a former UB #5 still haunts that jersey to this day; a curse that wisemen in the northeast tell me can only be expurgated by a 20+ PPG season from Al Jay. Indeed, UB’s RB room has my attention once more in the year 2025. ◾
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Sample 2018-2024, excluding 2020.
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