Shane Beamer and South Carolina have added another piece to their recruiting infrastructure. The Gamecocks officially brought on LaFayette Stewart Jr. as their new Director of Recruiting for Defense, the program recently announced.
Stewart spent the last two seasons at NC State, where he worked as the Wolfpack's assistant director of recruiting. Before that, he built his background at Charlotte, serving as Director of Player Development while also working as a defensive assistant.
He got his start coaching at several high schools in South Carolina before making the jump to the college ranks. He knows the state, and region, inside and out.
Stewart is stepping into a program that has already put real weight behind its 2027 recruiting class, particularly on the defensive side. South Carolina has already landed commitments from five-star cornerback Joshua Dobson and safety Davion Jones, among other high-end defensive targets. Adding a recruiter with ties to the state and two Power Four stops under his belt gives that class another set of hands pushing it forward.
Shane Beamer and the Gamecocks are coming off a 4-8 season in 2025, and Beamer has been open about the kind of staff he wants around him as he tries to get the program back on track.
The biggest change came on offense, where Beamer hired Kendal Briles away from TCU in December to run the unit as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Briles has called plays at Baylor, FAU, Houston, Florida State, Arkansas and TCU, and Athlon Sports ranked his arrival among the top coordinator hires in the SEC this offseason. He didn't come alone. Beamer also brought in Randy Clements, a 23-year college offensive line coach who spent last season alongside Briles at TCU, and Stan Drayton, a 33-year coaching veteran who takes over the running backs while serving as assistant head coach for offense. Drayton comes to Columbia after a year on James Franklin's staff at Penn State and a three-year run as the head coach at Temple.
Speaking at SEC Media Days this week, Beamer touched on the makeup of his current staff heading into a critical season in his tenure, just two years removed from a breakout 9-4 campaign in 2024, his best season in Columbia.
"We have coaches on our staff that had opportunities to take other jobs in college football and in the NFL, and they chose to stay," Beamer shared. "The coaches that came to us, we have new coaches on our staff, they chose to come along with the high school recruits that I just referenced and the transfer portal guys that came in to us. They chose to come because they believe in what we're about."
Recruiting infrastructure hires like this one don't always get the headlines that a coordinator hire gets, but they matter just as much to how a class comes together, especially late in the cycle when relationships and organization decide close calls. Stewart's job now is to keep that defensive class rolling and to build on the momentum South Carolina has already found at five-star and blue-chip level.
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