Michigan adds former Coastal Carolina edge Josaiah Stewart from the transfer portal

Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines have earned a fourth commitment from a player in the transfer portal, as former Coastal Carolina edge Josaiah Stewart announced he has picked Michigan over USC.

Stewart announced an offer from the Wolverines one day after the transfer portal opened up a couple weeks back. He earned several other offers — including Missouri, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State, Cincinnati and North Carolina — but eventually narrowed his recruitment down to Michigan, USC and LSU.

This past weekend, he took trips to both Ann Arbor and Los Angeles, effectively ruling out LSU from his top list. It’s unclear at this point exactly what the reasons were for choosing Michigan, but I’m sure his former high school teammate Mike Sainristil was among the reasons for his final decision.

Stewart — a True Freshman All-American by the FWAA, The Athletic, ESPN and 247Sports in 2021 — had 43 tackles, 15.5 tackles for loss, 12.5 sacks (a Coastal Carolina school record) and three forced fumbles as a first-year player. He followed that up with 36 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, one pass deflection and one forced fumble this past season.

Stewart has two years of college eligibility remaining.

At 6-foot-2 and 230 pounds, he is more likely set to play a pass rushing linebacker role in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines have preferred bigger players along the defensive line in recent years, so I would anticipate Stewart playing in a similar role to Jaylen Harrell and, in past years, Josh Uche and David Ojabo.

With Stewart in the mix, Michigan now has four players committed from the portal this year, along with former Arizona State offensive lineman LaDarius Henderson, former Stanford offensive lineman Myles Hinton and former Nebraska linebacker Ernest Hausmann.

Stewart is ranked No. 24 overall in 247Sports’ transfer portal rankings. Hausmann is ranked No. 1, while Henderson is No. 11 and Hinton is No. 41 overall.