In Shane Beamer’s words: How South Carolina landed 5-star Dylan Stewart

Amid a discussion about his father, Frank Beamer, and the evolution of college football recruiting, South Carolina head football coach Shane Beamer gave some insight to his strategy of recruiting five-star signee Dylan Stewart.

Speaking Wednesday on the SEC Network’s radio show, Beamer answered how he’s targeted the Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Maryland area (also called the DMV) when recruiting high school players to Columbia. Stewart was a priority edge rusher for the Gamecocks, and he’s one of two five-star athletes signed with USC for the 2024 class.

“When I got hired, I knew we wanted to tap into that area a little bit more,” Beamer said in the radio interview. “I wanted to attack it for sure from a recruiting standpoint.”

Beamer said his experience at Virginia Tech helped establish the desire to bring DMV athletes to the SEC. He was “hesitant” to target the demographic while working at USC under Steve Spurrier, since Frank Beamer as at Virginia Tech and heavily recruited the area for the Hokies.

As South Carolina’s head coach, Shane Beamer decided to focus on the DMV and began finding players to bring to USC, marketing the SEC program that’s closest to the area. He’s since built momentum by bringing high school athletes down one by one.

“If you look at a map, we’re closer than pretty much every school, I guess,” Beamer said. “There’s so many students here at Carolina that are from that part of the country also.”

To get Stewart to USC, there were two factors at play: current Gamecocks who encouraged Stewart — and their moms.

“When you’re able to get guys down here, it just creates momentum,” Beamer said in the radio interview. “That’s what happened this year. We got some guys that he knew that were already a part of the program, and those guys told him great things about it and that he wanted to be a part of it as well.

“The other cool thing, too, is the moms,” Beamer continued. “They’ve gotten to know each other and visit with Dylan Stewart. One of the moms of our current players did a home visit. They kind of got to know each other and bonded.”

South Carolina has six current players from the DMV, including WR Nyck Harbor and DB Zahbari Sandy. USC added two additional DMV signees Wednesday morning, Stewart and Fred Johnson.

Stewart committed to USC in August after visiting the program in June. He won The Washington Post’s All-Metro Football Player of the Year after an 11-2 season with Friendship Collegiate Academy.

Beamer in the radio interview also noted that nearly all the signees’ paperwork for Wednesday’s signing day was in by 8 a.m. South Carolina posted the official announcement for Stewart’s signing at 7:56 a.m.