South Carolina edge rusher Dylan Stewart’s latest on-field flare-up has put his future with the program in question, and it also fits a pattern that has followed him at USC.
After the Gamecocks’ 49-18 loss to Alabama on Saturday, coach Shane Beamer suspended Stewart indefinitely and ruled him out for this week’s game against Kentucky. Beamer told reporters, “there’s a standard of how we do things in this program, and that was not it last night,” and said a decision on Stewart’s future with the program will come this week.
The Alabama game packed in several incidents. Stewart was hit with a roughing-the-passer penalty, got into a heated sideline argument with Beamer and later pushed freshman Julian Walker away when coaches tried to sub him out.
The night also included a confrontation with Alabama tight end Josh Ford. Stewart threw an uppercut at Ford’s helmet in the fourth quarter, and Ford said afterward that Stewart punched him three times during the game. Stewart was not ejected, a result that surprised the ESPN broadcast crew.
This was not Stewart’s first run-in with discipline issues on the field. In South Carolina’s 2025 loss to Vanderbilt, he was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct and ejected after shoving offensive tackle Bryce Henderson in front of a referee.
The problems go back to his true freshman season in 2024, when Stewart drew a 15-yard taunting penalty against Ole Miss after standing over quarterback Jaxson Dart and pretending to shoot him repeatedly with an imaginary shotgun. That came during a 27-3 loss for the Gamecocks.
A few minutes later, Stewart tackled Ole Miss running back Matt Jones for a loss and brought back the fake gun celebration again. Former Gamecock Mike Davis then publicly asked him on social media to stop, calling the gesture a guaranteed penalty.
Beamer addressed that celebration after the Ole Miss game, calling it unacceptable, saying Stewart was punished in-house and adding that “Dylan Stewart is a really good kid.”
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