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STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 31, 2018

JJ Arcega-Whiteside

Stanford, California

Stanford - 31, San Diego State - 10

Q. How would you describe your game here? You had three touchdown catches and seemed to have quite a relationship with K.J. in this game.
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: I'm happy. Obviously not satisfied. I think we can do better for sure. We came out rusty in the first half. In the second half we played a lot more comfortable, a lot more confidence. That's kind of how it goes the first game of the year.

There's a lot of things here and there that you've got to fix you've got to figure out especially when you're playing somebody that's not wearing a cardinal jersey. I'm pleased but not satisfied.

Q. Were you surprised they did so much single coverage on you?
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: To a certain extent, yes. I mean, they were shutting down the run game pretty well. There were times when we did squeeze it out here and there. But that's something that I think that's what their game plan was, load up the box play one-on-one on the outside. And as a receiver that's what you want, what you can ask for. And now hopefully guys know you can't load up the box and play one-on-one with us.

Q. Stanford fans aren't used to seeing Bryce Love bottled up like that. What was your assessment? Coach said they were stacking the defense against him.
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: Bryce Love is one of the most talented running backs, if not the most talented, running back in the country. Probably up there to win the Heisman. Of course you're going to have to have extra support to kind of back off from him. That just frees up everything on the outside. And that's something we've talked about in the offseason, how if they're going to put six, seven, eight in the box, then we've got to be ready on the outside.

Q. Do you think you guys are more capable of taking advantage of that maybe than last year?
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: For sure. Bryce started getting all that hype kind of in the second half of the season midway through the season and teams started realizing late that they had to stack the box to stop us.

That's when we realized later that, okay, if we have one-on-one matchups, we have to make the most of it. That's something we discussed all offseason, just being ready on the outside. You never know when it's going to come to you. And when we saw that SDSU was stacking the box like they were, we were telling ourselves now it's time to go.

Q. How much confidence does this give you guys moving forward knowing you can throw the football if they're stacking the box against Bryce?
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: You know, I'd say it's definitely good to do it in a game. Confidence-wise we know we've had -- tonight it was me. The next game it could be Colby, Kaden, Trenton, anybody. And that's just the kind of receivers and tight ends that we have. Any day. It can strike through either one of us.

So we're excited. Teams are going to stack the box. We'll be more than happy to take the one-on-one matchups. And if they want to play zone, drop out, then we'll block for No. 20. He'll take it to the house.

Q. Can you describe a little bit the connection you have? Seems like when you have one-on-one coverage, knows exactly where to put it.
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: K.J. has that confidence, that commander sense when he's in the huddle. And having that, it makes everything more comfortable, more confident on the outside.

Yeah, he just told me in the huddle that he's going to look my way or be ready on the outside. All right. I'm going to jog outside and I'm going to be ready. Instead of just going out there being robotic calling play calls. He takes control of the huddle. He's always in our ear about everything. And going out before the play is even ran, it gives you that kind of assurance that, all right, if it's coming to me I got to be ready and it showed tonight.

Q. You guys scored in the last minute in the second quarter, was there any frustration or concern during halftime?
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: We were telling each other it's not time to panic. It's the first quarter, the first game of the year -- second quarter of the first game of the year. There's no need to panic. Panicking isn't going to do anything. Just stick to the technique. Stick to the game plan that we've had. Be ready to make plays.

That was coach's most direct message at halftime was to, if you get your name called, be ready to make a play. And we took off with it.

Q. What's the key to those? Seemed like you had big plays on the jump balls, I don't want to say 50/50, but jump ball-type situations where he throws it over the top and you go over the --
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: That's something that offseason you build on. It's a lot more to it than just getting on one side and throwing it up, going up and catch it. If I'm right here, he has to throw right here. And if I'm right here, he's got to throw it right here. If he's fast, be ready for back shoulder. If I'm getting on top, be ready to lob it over the top.

Minor details we talked about all the time. And we'll be at lunch, we'll be at dinner, we'll be right before the meeting and he'll pull me to the side say, hey, these guys do this, be ready for this. I'm like, K.J., it's not time to talk about football but okay.

Q. During the week?
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: Yeah, during the week, when it's time to not think about football, K.J.'s always on top of it, making sure everybody's on the same page. That's the guy you want in the huddle.

Q. I assume those kind of plays you talk about you guys must work on, I don't even know how many times, during seven-on-sevens?
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: Every day, every day before practice, every day after practice, every day during practice. It's 50/50 balls. We want to make it 60/40. 70/30, every advantage we can take.

Q. What have you worked on the hardest do you think since last season to this season to get to this point?
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: It wasn't really one thing. Just kind of perfecting the craft. Obviously the jump balls were a big thing because last year even though I did catch a lot there were some left on the field I wanted to catch all of them. So working on those, really just being that guy that the receivers the guys on the offense anybody on the team can come to and rely and ask questions about the program or anything that's going on, really just learn how to be a leader and be a captain.

Q. What's it like to have -- you go back to the bowl game, back-to-back three touchdown games?
JJ ARCEGA-WHITESIDE: I didn't realize it until after the game, one of the teammates pulled it up. And it kind of just surprised me. I was like, whoa, that's pretty cool. Hopefully we can keep that going.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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