With just a week until South Carolina reports for preseason camp next Thursday, head coach Shane Beamer once again shared an update on Dylan Stewart and Jacarrius Peak Thursday at the annual Birdies with Beamer tournament.
“I know you’ll ask about injuries; really nothing new from last week,” Beamer said. “You’ll ask about Peak and Dylan Stewart, same as what I told you last week. They’re progressing nicely. They both had doctor’s appointments this week, and everything was positive coming out of those reports. They’re trending in the right direction and eager to get back out there and get on the field, and I know they will be really, really soon.”
Entering his junior season with the Gamecocks, Stewart has recorded 56 career tackles with 22.5 being tackles for loss, along with 11 sacks and six forced fumbles. The 6-foot-5, 250-pounder played in 11 games last season and finished with 33 tackles and 4.5 sacks. However, he played through a back injury that limited his production for most of the second half of the year.
Beamer was asked how Stewart is doing with the mental aspect of recovering from the injury.
“Just making sure that he knows that we’re never going to do anything with him before he’s ready and that’s any player, meaning from a physical standpoint. We all want him back out there quickly, but he won’t be until, one, the doctors say he’s good to go and he feels great about it,” Beamer said. “And that’s going back to last season too. He wasn’t 100 percent healthy, to say the least, during last season. But the conversations that I had with his mom and him and people close to him throughout the season, they realized that then. I talked to his mom two days ago, and we were talking about it.
“So I think just the trust factor that he has with us, that goes a long way for sure because it’s very real. And then that part of why he’s been so limited since the end of last season is from the physical and the mental standpoint. But understanding that we’re going to rest, and that’s the best thing for you to then allow you, when you are cleared to get back out there, be an even better version of the Dylan Stewart that we all saw when he came on the scene in 2024.
“And I know he will be. He’s in a great frame of mind. I mean, I come in early in the morning, and during the summer, our first lifting group is at 7 a.m. It’s the first group that lifts each and every day. And Dylan’s in that weight room at 6:45, 6:50 every morning, getting a head start on everybody else with his recovery and getting healthy. I’m really proud of where he is right now and the summer that he’s had mentally and physically.”
Peak, a redshirt senior transfer from NC State, spent the last four seasons with the Wolfpack, where he played in 38 games and made 32 starts. After redshirting as a freshman in 2022, he became a consistent starter on the offensive line over the next three seasons and played more than 2,200 snaps.
Peak comes to South Carolina as an offensive tackle after making 14 starts at left tackle and 18 at right tackle. He was ranked as the No. 1 offensive tackle and No. 3 overall player in this offseason’s transfer portal cycle, per On3’s transfer portal player rankings.
Shortly after transferring, the 6-foot-4, 305-pound lineman injured his knee playing basketball during a team event in February. As a result, he missed all of spring practice with the Gamecocks.
Beamer was asked if Stewart and Peak will be ready for the season opener or if they could be held out in games against Kent State and Towson. He said they “treat all opponents the same” and will have them on the field when they’re ready to go.
South Carolina will open preseason camp on Friday, Aug. 7. The 2026 season begins on Sept. 5 against Kent State at Williams-Brice Stadium. The team’s SEC opener isn’t until Sept. 19 when it hosts Mississippi State to wrap up a three-game homestand.