2026 NFL Draft Prospect Interview: Elijah Steward, WR, Lafayette College

• Name: Elijah Steward
• Position: WR
• College: Lafayette College
• Height: 5′ 10′
• Weight: 180 lbs
• X: @Elijah_11k
• Instagram: @laaj11

What made you decide you wanted to be a football player?

Well my grandpa was a really big influence on me so ever since I was young like really, really young I think I was around like four years old when I started playing football, which was a year before everybody is eligible. My grandpa put me into sports because it was supposed to make us tough and he wanted us to learn discipline and the best way he  saw that fit was through sports so that’s not even just football and in general like that was all sports. I played around like five or six sports when I was younger, football just so happened to be one of the first ones though.

What are your favorite moments from your football life?

I would have to say so more recently we won a Patriot League championship around two years ago, my sophomore year against our rival and we played Lehigh, which is one of the biggest rivalries. It’s the biggest rivalry in college football in terms of longevity, it was around 150 years when we had beaten them. So I would say that and then as well , I think just winning like a state championship in high school like you get to do that with all your friends that you grew up with so that’s always a lot of fun and then one more I’d say when I was young winning like just going on like Saturdays you have you have your football game and then after the football game like all of us will go play rumble or something just those times with friends having fun with the game.

What are you looking to achieve as a football player going forward?

Well, one of the things I like to say is I think that I’m just a sponge so I love retaining information, I love asking questions, I love trying to be the best that I can be not only physically but mentally as well. I feel like there is no maximum capacity of learning that you could do so I think maximizing on just asking as many questions as I can being receptive to anything that anyone tells me about being the best student that I could be at the game. It’s a game that has so much more to offer than just going out there and playing football. I mean it builds character and builds leadership roles, resilience so just trying to find a whole bunch of different outlets to maximize what I can get out of the sport.

If you could hang out with any football player past or present for a day, who would why?

I would probably say Davante Adams and that’s because I am really big on route techniques and he’s the technician if you really know wide receivers and run a route.. So Davante Adams, he’s the goat standard so I think just being able to sit down with him, ask him as many questions as I can would be a really, really cool experience.

Which one of your family members inspires you the most and why?

It’s hard to pick one I would say as a tandem sort of as like a trio I’d say like my grandparents and my older brother Sean, they just motivate me to want to be a better person each and every day so through football, they definitely inspired me but I feel like it goes a little bit more past football that’s what makes me want to perform the best on the field just because they always set me up an opportunities to try and better myself as a man and I feel like every time myself on the field, I owe it to them to just give my best effort and put my best foot forward and show my capabilities because physically I think I’m perfectly fine but obviously like I said before I could always grow mentally and just get more mature as a person and they definitely inspired me to do that.

What is your favorite offensive scheme and why?

So these past four years in college, we ran an RPO scheme, which is definitely nice but as a running back, I feel like it’s a little bit more fun than a wide receiver, but I think for me, I think what would suit me the best is obviously West Coast just because I feel as though I’m stretching out playing a lot more spread would give me more field to play with and more route concepts to run deep which is kind of where I think my bread and butter is at I’m a route runner so I’d like to go run all those deep routes, short routes, whatever you can name. I feel like that just opens up a lot more for receivers in today’s game but yeah, now whatever offense I’m in is something I think that I could thrive in, but I think the West Coast offense would definitely be a lot of fun to go in.

What should we know about Elijah Steward the person?

Me as a person I think just obviously I’m trying to stay as humble as possible but I think that I just try to maximize everybody who’s around me their drive sort of. I’d like to say that I’m a bit of a leader but I also know that at the end of the day my abilities can only take a team so far so it’s a team effort, it’s team driven. So I feel as though one of your jobs on a football field is to bring people with you, it’s to bring the fun out of the game with everybody with you and that’s when you’ll get the best results. And then also like I’m really receptive when it comes to learning like I’ll take advice, I’ll take criticism from anybody. I don’t think that I’m in any way near perfect at all so anything that anybody ever has to say about me or tell me I’ll definitely take with a lot of thought. I’d like to say that I’m a great listener and just a student of the game.

What stands out about your film the most?

I think the first thing you are going to see is just explosion. I’d like to say that my film has a little bit of everything so if you look and see that, I mean I’m a smaller guy, but I’m put on the outside and a lot of people might think why but truly it’s just because you could put me anywhere one on one but if you wanna put me one on one that’s going to be a bad thing for defenses. I’m just versatile with my explosion like I’m really, really smooth in and out of my routes. I pride myself on my route running. Route running is everything to me. I work on it daily but then also like if I catch the ball you got it you got to tackle me and if you look at my film that’s a big thing that I harp myself on. It’s just yards after the catch and making people miss doing whatever I can. To just get that extra yard and then another thing is I’m pretty sure handed. I don’t I know how many drops that I that have I that I’ve had but even with the with the ball up in up the in air like 50-50 like balls even like myself being smaller a guy like going I’m to going go up to go the get ball. So yeah I’d like to say that my tape has a little bit of everything but the biggest thing is that I’m explosive.

How do you handle challenges both in life and on the football field?

Well I’ve been challenged with a lot of things throughout my life, but I feel as though you always have to see the good in everything. If you look too far into the negative, that’s when you get overtaken by outside factors that you can’t control. So with myself I like to say that regardless of a good or bad experience you take it with a grain of salt. It’s life at the end of the day. So you can’t really sit there and wish that things were different and everything like that, you can but at the end of the day you are just wasting time and time is precious. So just understand that you have to take the moments the way that they come and understand that it’s moulding you into something that should be better in the outcome as long as you’re receptive to the information that you are taking on.

What would a team get in a player like you?

So in a player like me a team would get a relentless worker on top of a pure student of the game. All I need is just a little bit of belief and opportunity. I have always made the best of any opportunity I’ve been given not just in football but life as well and that’s how I’ve been groomed. Somebody who is just going to maximize on the opportunity and somebody who is definitely hungry for an opportunity but humble in a sense that the opportunity is what you have to do with it and work really, really hard but that’s the standard.

What do you love the most about the game of football?

I would say those hardships and all the nitty gritty moments that aren’t talked about alot. You might call me crazy but those 6 am workouts they suck at the moment but those are the things that you remember the most. The stuff that you have to go through as a team to build relationships. And those relationships last a lifetime I’m still cool with kids that I started playing with when I was four years old it’s crazy to think but that’s truly what the game does through those hardships it just builds solid relationships that will go for the rest of your life and no other sport can you really get that sort of success and grind then football.

Who is the most underrated player you’ve played with and why?

Jamar Curtis, he was our running back at Lafayette for about 3 years and he’s a smaller guy but I don’t think there’s a running back in the FCS that’s better than Jamar truly and he’s probably going to be one of the best backs going into the draft next year. Then Dean DeNobile my quarterback, he was actually a walk-on and ended up winning a spot and is one of the most prolific quarterbacks in our program’s history and now he’s a Florida State where he’s going to kill it and go into the draft, he’s a gem. And last, I would say Carson Persing, another wide receiver on Lafayette that was my dynamic duo for a bit, smaller guy but a real route technician but he’s going to be the one this year.