Dylan Stewart's late-game punch against Alabama was the latest example of a star player putting himself ahead of the team. South Carolina was getting blown out Saturday night when Stewart, a projected top-10 pick in next spring's NFL Draft, punched Crimson Tide tight end Josh Ford in the helmet after a fourth-quarter touchdown. He was flagged, but not ejected.
Earlier, Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer had confronted him after Stewart was slow to leave the field following a penalty. None of it helped a team headed toward their seventh consecutive SEC loss, 49-18 at the hands of the Tide, under the current regime. "Dylan is suspended from our football team indefinitely," Beamer said during Sunday night's SEC teleconference.
"I'll make the decision on what his future looks like beyond this week here in the next day or so. Still having some meetings and talking with him. But he won't play this week versus Kentucky.
There's a standard of how we do things in this program, and that was not it last night. "And it's beyond the punch; the punch is unacceptable. He's not the first person to ever, unfortunately, throw a punch in a football game, and he won't be the last.
But it's some of the other stuff that isn't how we do things in this program. And accountability is a core value of this program, and we are all accountable to the standard. So we'll see what that looks like here going forward." Beamer's battling enough outside noise during a tumultuous campaign on the league's hottest seat that an in-house headache could sink what's left of the ship entirely.
Chalk this up as a smart move by him, even if it doesn't help South Carolina's case next weekend against Kentucky. Also, this wasn't Stewart's first lesson in how quickly his emotion can hurt the Gamecocks. Against Vanderbilt last season, he was ejected after a second unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
