This has not been the kind of season USC junior cornerback Chris Steele expected when he pronounced his goals in the spring.

In very clear teams, Steele said then, he hoped to be recognized as a unanimous first-team All-American after this fall and a high NFL draft pick.

The first goal is not going to happen this year, and it's hard to say where Steele's draft stock is at this point, but as he showed Saturday at Notre Dame the full narrative has not yet been written.

After a first half of the season in which his most definable moments seemed to be on the other end of big plays by the opposition, Steele reasserted some of his characteristic swagger last weekend, making his first interception of the season, making another pass breakup on a deep pass and delivering generally stifling coverage aside from a questionable pass interference call late.

"I honestly had probably four to five just bad plays this season, but I feel like those plays have kind of defined my play to a lot of people. I’ve just been trying to stay consistent in my play, stay consistent in my eyes and my feet and my technique and get my hands on some balls. I feel like this past Notre Dame game was a really good example of the true player I am and how I really like to play football," Steele said Wednesday after practice.

Steele's interception -- the second of his career -- came at a pivotal moment, right after USC had finally scored its first touchdown of the night early in the fourth quarter and with Notre Dame driving across midfield. Irish QB Jack Coan threw downfield along the right sideline for wide receiver Kevin Austin Jr., but Steele had the better position on the ball, just behind Austin and already turned around facing the QB, as he won the battle for the ball down at the 14-yard line.

That turnover kept USC in the game a little longer, especially when the Trojans scored on the ensuing drive to make it an 8-point game.

Unfortunately, Notre Dame followed with a 75-yard touchdown drive, aided by the pass interference flag on Steele, who had a slight tug on the back of Austin's jersey but was also in tight coverage again and with eyes on the ball ready to make a play on it as it arrived. The Irish scored five plays later to go up 31-16 and the comeback was effectively over.

There was contact, but it also wouldn't have been a surprise to see it go as a no-call, in which case Steele's performance might have been the story of the game if the Trojans got another stop there and continued on with their rally.

Steele certainly wasn't pleased with the call, and interim head coach Donte Williams seemed to agree with the sentiment.

"No comment on that," Williams said with a laugh a day later. "I'll let you all watch the play and you all discuss how you feel about it."

Williams was more than willing to share how he felt about Steele's play overall, though, calling it the cornerback's "best game of the season."

Asked what he was most encouraged by, Williams got straight to the point.

"They tried four deep balls on him. So anytime you play corner and they try four deep balls on you and they don't catch any of them, I think that's going in the right direction," he said.

Per PFF's stats, Steele was targeted 6 times overall, giving up 3 receptions for a stingy 24 yards. (The pass interference call doesn't count as an official pass attempt in the stats).

"Donte gave me one assignment going into the week, and that was, he told me going into the game that I was going to be on No. 4 (Austin). He was their main guy, primarily played to the boundary, that’s my target. And that’s the type of football I like to play. I’m a competitive dude," Steele said. "When I’m given an assignment, you tell me to go lock a dude up, I’m gonna do that. I feel like I showed that. I just have to stay consistent with it."

PFF had Notre Dame 0-for-2 on passes toward Austin with Steele in coverage, including the interception but also the pass interference. Overall, Steele scored his highest PFF grade of the season (70.9) -- he had been between 47.5 (vs. Utah) and 64.4 (Colorado) -- and his highest isolated coverage grade (74.5).

Beyond the stats or metrics, though, Steele qualified the difference in his play another way.

"Another thing I was putting a big emphasis on this week was just playing free and playing like myself. I feel like over the first few games I wasn't really doing that, but I had the bye week to get myself back right mentally, and it's only up from here now," Steele said. "I just wasn't playing like my normal self. I was trying to force too much and it was putting me in some bad positions, so I just kind of had to get back down to the basics, get my technique back down right and go from there."

Steele has also had his position coach -- Williams -- no longer focused exclusively on the cornerbacks since being elevated to interim head coach after Week 2. While Steele complimented the work graduate assistant Aaron Williams has done in filling the void, Donte Williams decided over the bye week he needed to get more involved with the unit again.

"I think he was a guy that was kind of playing, body a little dinged up, body beat up, and you know just some adjustments. You have an adjustment of maybe me always being in your ear, being your coach to maybe a couple other people so you're having to adjust to the things you have to do," Williams said. "I kind of went back to doing as much as I can possibly do with the secondary. I would say that helped him a little bit maybe ... but he's just a guy that's going to continue to develop."

As for the overall advanced metrics on Steele, PFF has him allowing 16 completions on 23 targets for 209 yards, 4 touchdowns and drawing 5 penalties on the season. The completion percentage and penalties are concerning. Overall, though, he hadn't been targeted a ton early on -- just 11 times over the first five games (and 12 times the last two games) -- and even with the breakdowns that fans remember well, the average comes out to 29.9 receiving yards allowed per game for Steele.

The Utah game, in which he had 2 touchdowns go against him, was his worst performance of the season and really magnified the scrutiny on his play. Just as notable is that he simply wasn't making the memorable plays to offset the bad ones, with just one PBU through the first six games.

Overall, Steele feels the narrative has been skewed this season, but he still has five more games to continue trying to reshape it.

"I genuinely feel like it’s just a few plays. I had two broken assignment plays and just bad eyes on another touchdown. Shoot I had an opportunity to make a play on that ball against Oregon State, and I didn’t. But at the end of the day, the past is the past," Steele said. "Like I said, it’s football. Everybody gets beat, especially at the position I play. Just having that next play mentality is huge for me.

"But I feel like a lot of people have let those few plays define my season so far, so I just want to be able to get my hands on a few balls to erase those plays."