Arcega-Whiteside can be a matchup nightmare
STANFORD >> The strong hands. How aggressively he goes to the ball and catches it at its highest point. The way he boxes out cornerbacks in tight coverage and uses his wingspan on backshoulder throws.
JJ Arcega-Whiteside is the son of two professional basketball players from Europe and was an all-state basketball player in South Carolina. So while he ultimately decided to focus on football, the Stanford wide receiver still takes advantage of his basketball roots.
“He’s a basketball player,”
quarterback K.J. Costello said. “He’s taking the ball off the rim.”
That mentality helped Arcega-Whiteside achieve one of the biggest single-game receiving performances in Stanford history in last Friday’s season opener. San Diego State was determined to stop Bryce Love and the running game, leaving
the 6-foot-3 Arcega-Whiteside in single coverage against smaller cornerbacks.
“As a receiver, that’s what you want. That’s all you can ask for,” Arcega-Whiteside said. “And now teams know they can’t stack the box and play 1-on-1 (on the outside).”
Arcega-Whiteside caught three touchdown passes and a two-point conversion against the Aztecs and posted 226 receiving yards, the third-most in school history. He was the first Stanford receiver to earn Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week honors since Mark Bradford in 2007.
“Regardless of who the defensive back is, if we get an opportunity down the field, he’s proven time and time again he can make those plays,” Cardinal coach David Shaw said.
Aztecs coach Rocky Long said that Arcega-Whiteside’s combination of speed and size is what made him so tough to stop in Stanford’s 31-10 win.
“He’s just as fast as we are. And he’s bigger than we are,” Long said. “They had a receiver we couldn’t cover. Otherwise we
played just as good as they did.”
Costello said his connection with Arcega-Whiteside comes down to trust and feel.
“There’s not a lot of wideouts that I’ve come across that have his knack and ability to position themselves properly countless, countless times in between the corner, outside the corner, sometimes slipping inside but still staying wide away from the safety,” Costello said.
David Gutshall, who coached ArcegaWhiteside at Dorman High School in Roebuck, South Carolina, has sent two receivers to the NFL: Charone Peake of the New York Jets and Adam Humphries of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But Gutshall said Arcega-Whiteside is the best receiver he has ever coached.
After watching the Stanford-SDSU game, Gutshall was talking to Colorado State quarterback Collin Hall, who threw to Arcega-Whiteside at Dorman.
“I said it was just like high school,” Gutshall said. “You just throw it up and JJ is going to outfight you for it.”
Gutshall remembers a game against Hillcrest that Dorman trailed by five points in the final minutes. With the ball at Hillcrest’s 36, there was no doubt which play to call.
“I told the QB, ‘We’re going to put JJ in the corner. Throw it to him,’ ” Gutshall said. “He asked, ‘What if he’s double-covered?’ I said, ‘I don’t care, throw it to JJ.’ And he caught it for the touchdown.”
Shaw would never tell his quarterback to throw into double coverage, but he has the same level of confidence in Arcega-Whiteside’s ability to make a difficult catch in coverage.
“The bottom line is, if it’s one-on-one,
we’re going to give him a shot to make a play,” Shaw said.
JJ’s father, Joaquin Arcega, played professional basketball in Spain, while his mother, Valorie Whiteside, played at Appalachian State and is still the leading scorer in Southern Conference history. Two of his uncles played basketball for Spain in the Olympics.
But it isn’t just genetics — Arcega-Whiteside combines his athletic bloodlines with a strong work ethic.
“I don’t know I’ve been around a guy that’s as hungry all the time to get feedback, to get coached, to constantly put pressure on himself to get better,” Cardinal wide receivers coach Bobby Kennedy said.
Arcega-Whiteside had big games last season against top opponents — 112 yards and two touchdowns on six catches against Oregon, 130 yards on five catches against Washington, 61 yards and three touchdowns in the Alamo Bowl against TCU. But as the opener showed, he’s poised for more this season.
“Those 50/50 balls, we want to make them 60/40, 70/30,” Arcega-Whiteside said. “The jump balls, even though I did catch a lot, I left some on the field. I wanted to catch all of them.”