USC CB Chris Steele sets lofty goals for junior season
Steele wants to be a unanimous selection as a first-team All-American corner and considered a high draft prospect
Chris Steele reacts after USC miraculously beats ASU in the Coliseum last November.
Adam Grosbard (OC Register) — USC cornerback Chris Steele is entering a pivotal year in his college football career. As a junior, he will have the opportunity to leave for the NFL draft following the 2021 season if he likes where he is projected to be selected.
Accordingly, he has established two goals for this season: To be a unanimous selection as a first-team All-American corner, and to be considered a high draft prospect following the campaign.
To reach these goals, he’s focused on two areas for improvement that at their most basic descriptions feel contradictory: To use his hands more and to use his hands less.
The former is easy enough to explain. Steele feels if there’s one deficiency in his game tape, it’s in plays on the ball. He has nine pass breakups in his two seasons at USC, starting in 12 of the 18 games he’s played.
But he has only one interception to his name in college. Steele wants to add at least five to that total this coming season.
“I think I’ve always had like a kind of a bad rep of not making plays on the ball, just having a lot of pass breakups,” Steele said in a press conference Thursday.
As for using his hands less, Steele is also aware he got flagged several times last season for defensive holding or pass interference. His tight, physical style of coverage frequently drew the attention of officials, as did any frustration he expressed in the middle of game-long battles with receivers.
USC cornerbacks coach Donte Williams is working with Steele on the mental aspect of the game during spring camp. Williams preaches to his players that the game is 90% mental and 10% physical, but says Steele can get caught playing 50-50 at times.
“So it’s my job to make sure the game is calmed down and slowed down for them and they’re playing with a level head,” Williams explained, “playing technically first and physically second.”
It’s still a work in process. During a practice last week, Steele got tangled up with a receiver and held onto the teammate’s face mask until they were separated.
But at the next practice, it was Steele who finished the day with an interception of Kedon Slovis on a pass intended for Drake London in the end zone during goal-line work.
“It felt amazing,” Steele said. “The energy at practice was crazy and I just look forward to making a lot of plays like that this year to help this team win games.”
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Coaching Assignments for tomorrow’s spring game are as follows:
Team Cardinal: Graham Harrell will be the Head Coach, Seth Doege will be the offensive coordinator, Craig Naviar will be the Defensive Coordinator, Vic So’oto and Clay McGuire will fill out the staff.
Team Gold: Todd Orlando will be the Head Coach, Mike Jinks will be the offensive coordinator, Donte Williams will be the Defensive Coordinator, Sean Snyder and Keary Colbert will complete the staff.
The game will air on the Pac-12 Network at 1:00pm.
So what will Clay Helton be doing……………
Hopefully staying out of the way!
Which staff would you rather play for?
I’d choose Team Gold, with Orlando (Defense Rules!), Jinks (run, baby, run), Williams (future head coach?), Synder (Did you know the 51-yr old was an All-American punter at KSU?) and Colbert (Whenever Keary comes to mind, I always think of his great Rose Bowl catch 🏈 🏆 🏈.)
Helton can be one of the refs. Or the official timekeeper.
Evan Mobley has officially declared for the NBA Draft
He’s League Bound!
Isaiah White announced on his Instagram account on Friday that he plans to take the NCAA up on its offer of an extra year of eligibility due to the pandemic and play another year for USC.
Very important. ✌
No doubt Steele needs work, he was approaching getting the nickname “grabby” from his predecessor. Like AJ, I see Steele relying on pure athleticism in his play. It worked for him in high school, but now he faces similar athleticism and it is time to develop a genuine skill set.
The Rich Are Going To Get Richer Nick Saban on the new NCAA transfer rule allowing a one-time only transfer with immediate eligibility to play — “I think what’s going to happen as you see how often in a lot of leagues, you know the good players go to a good team and the bad players leave good teams because they’re not playing. So is that going to make the rich get richer? I don’t know. You can decide that. “I mean we do a great job here of helping players develop to be more successful in life. Lots of… Read more »
All other things being equal, Saban is correct. But, this major change will be paired with another major change – the NILs. I am now convinced that NILs will have a significant impact on collegiate football. The reason that USB BB was given a “minor” penalty is that every team was paying its BB players. There are ways to “play the game” and SC is learning how to do that. Your point that Mike Garrett refusing to “play the game” was a major contributing factor to the extraordinarily unfair (and candidly civilly illegal) penalties placed on SC football. Using BB… Read more »
The immediate transfer rule combined with NILs will be like 3 dimension chess. Recruiting busts will leave the top programs to get play time, guys who gel in a lesser program will leave for a better team, the “star” players will want to go to large market cities for more financial opportunities. 18-19 year old kids will have to make yearly decisions. Can I make more money but not get noticed by the NFL or do I give up some money to get NFL ready? Is being one of many stars on Alabama better than being the big fish at… Read more »
RJJ and GT — Interesting and solid insight. This is all gonna be absolutely wild IMO.
In theory I support the idea that players should be able to transfer & play without having to sit out a year. But it is unclear how it will play out in practice. Already there are more kids in the portal than there are available scholarships. I worry that some of them will be left without a degree and limited options. If I am not mistaken Gaotette (forgive the spelling) hasn’t received a new scholarship. He didn’t live up to his HS rating and as a result his future is uncertain. Most of these kids are not going to play… Read more »
Kids should definitely stick with their schools for the most part, unless they just flat out are convinced they are being treated unfairly, or they know they have another place to land. But in some ways, it’s the same old, same old. Hotshot preps find out in college they can’t start, or even compete anymore in college at the level they expected. Some will literally be driven out of programs that are looking to unload dead weight and improve themselves. That’s why it’s still so important to both evaluate properly, and sign the guys you really need the most. You… Read more »
I think every program will save a couple, 2?, 3?, 4? scholarships each year for transfers. AL, CL, OSU will take only the top of the top to fill a specfic need. As the portal gets used more and more there will be less scholarships available for HS kids. It is going to be wild for the next few years as NIL & and liberalized transfer rules are implemented.