REACTION: Dylan Stewart's Pledge Validates Trajectory Of South Carolina

Dylan Stewart's commitment to South Carolina Football validates multiple things about Shane Beamer, his staff and the program itself.

Let's take a quick trip down memory lane back to February 1st, the "later" national signing day period for the 2023 recruiting class. On that day, South Carolina, in the final hours, landed 5-star athlete Nyckoles Harbor from Washington, D.C., beating out prestigious programs like Michigan and Miami, an NIL giant in Oregon, and the "home state" Maryland Terrapins.

The immediate reaction to this from the rest of the country was positive, but as Gamecock fans know better than anyone, South Carolina's program is used to getting proverbial pats on the back, almost at times in a condescending and degrading manner. In all honestly, even including a couple of people who follow recruiting for a living, most people outside of South Carolina's fanbase and the city of Columbia thought the Gamecocks couldn't pull off this feat again, not this quickly. Yet, that's exactly what Shane Beamer and his staff did on Tuesday morning.

Dylan Stewart's pledge to the Gamecocks reinforces multiple notions that have been slowly growing since Beamer's arrival in December of 2020. Firstly, South Carolina doesn't need to have "home-field advantage" to land five-star prospects, and until the Harbor saga in the 2023 cycle, this was a longstanding narrative that existed in the recruiting world. With Stewart's commitment, that narrative is completely dead.

Secondly, Stewart's commitment proves that Harbor's signing wasn't some one-off dumb luck moment for South Carolina. Every program in the sport, especially those in the northeast right now, will have to be weary from this point forward when they see the Gamecocks are in pursuit of a 5-star prospect.

Lastly, Stewart's pledge to the Gamecocks sends a resounding message that for a program in South Carolina's current shoes, a combination of on-field progress and continued vision for the future can be enough to persuade a prospect to go to said program over other programs. Ohio State does have more history to point to than the Gamecocks and probably has more NIL that they can offer. Yet, South Carolina's relationships with Stewart and his family once again won out in the end.

Shane Beamer's hire was heavily criticized when it was announced in the 2020 postseason. Most thought that the move would backfire and that Beamer would recruit well but leave a decently filed cupboard for someone else. Currently, Beamer is winning the race against that narrative, and Stewart's commitment is more evidence of that.

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