Schiefelbein: Stewart in midst of special year

• By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 13, 2008 - UPDATED: 6:30 a.m.

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The wait for Juamorris Stewart to come on and have his breakout season is over.

King Juamorris has plenty of witnesses.

There were 41,513 to see Stewart go off for eight catches, 179 yards and two touchdowns on Oct. 4 — against a 6-foot-2 cornerback who was a Missouri transfer and touted as a preseason Championship Subdivision All-American.

And there were 25,512 on hand for homecoming Saturday to see Stewart make five catches for 128 yards and two touchdowns.

Never mind a breakout, Stewart is zooming past breakout season to special season just like he’s getting by and leaping over defenders.

“He’s making plays for us,” Southern coach Pete Richardson said. “He’s making some great catches, going up over guys and taking the ball from him.”

So far this season, Stewart has 39 catches for 627 yards and eight touchdowns. That’s already more yards than any SU receiver a year ago and one less TD than Gerard Landry had.

So far, Stewart has three 100-yard games. One more will be the most since Devin Lewis had five in 2001 (the year Michael Hayes was sidelined with an injury).

So far, Stewart has four two-touchdown games. The only true measuring stick for that goes straight to the greatest receiving season in a Southern uniform, Hayes’ 2000, when the 6-foot-5 LSU transfer tallied 1,328 yards and 15 touchdowns, getting one in every game. And he only had three games that season with multiple TDs (two games with two touchdowns, one with three), but he had four 100-yard games and one 200-yarder.

Lewis had 1,052 yards and eight touchdowns in 2001. That’s the last 1,000-yard season from a Southern receiver, although making a statement like that has to come with a nod of respect to the 2003 group of receivers. Chris Davis (897 yards, eight TDs), Alfred Ard (863 yards, 11 TDs), Drayton Bridges (579 yard, five TDs), Lionel Joseph (524 yards, three TDs) and James Vernon (365 yards, five TDs) — as a group — put on a show every Saturday night.

Stewart has 1,129 career yards. That’s 191 from moving into the school’s top 10 list.

Hayes (3,056 yards), Michigan associate head coach/offensive coordinator Calvin Magee (1,973 yards) and Lewis (with 1,874 career yards) are one, two and three atop that list. NFL great Harold Carmichael and Landry are in that top 10 as well.

So then, this is the conversation into which Stewart has begun to thrust himself.