It was JJ Arcega-Whiteside who took the star role Friday night for the Cardinal in a 31-10 win over San Diego State. He caught six passes for an incredible 226 yards and three touchdowns as Stanford adjusted to San Diego State's plan to take away the run game.

Stanford entered its season opener with a touted offense led by Heisman contender Bryce Love at running back. But San Diego State committed to stopping the run, the offensive line couldn't gain the upper hand and Stanford opted to go to the air to earn the win.

Love finished the game with 29 yards on 18 carries and the team only had 52 yards on the ground. While Stanford tried to establish the run it was shut out until the last drive of the first half.

Bobby Okereke used his great closing speed to sack Aztec quarterback Christian Chapman in the end zone for a safety, getting Stanford on the board. Trailing 7-2, Stanford went into hurry-up mode and that was seemingly derailed when KJ Costello's pass was tipped and intercepted by SDSU's Noble Hall.

But Trent Irwin changed hats to a defensive back, tracked down Hall and ripped the ball out. He recovered the fumble and gave Costello and the offense a second chance. They finally capitalized.

Outside of one first half drive, Stanford's defense stood strong for most of the game against the run-heavy Aztecs. San Diego State's star runner, Juwan Washington, got his yards and was the leader of a 92-yard drive. He was responsible for 84 of those yards.

It was the roughest drive of the game for the Cardinal defensive front. But that group's performance steadied as the game went on and defensive coordinator Lance Anderson unleashed more blitzes to get into the backfield and harass Christian Chapman, who was a menace in key downs last year.

While the offense struggled with three three-and-out drives in the first half, it was the defense who kept the game close.

The second half was the start of Arcega-Whiteside show.

Arcega-Whiteside can't be covered one-on-one by anyone other than one of the best defensive backs in the country. He put together a performance the likes of which hadn't been seen since Troy Walters against UCLA in 1998. The similar stats where the comparison ends between the two Cardinal receivers.

Walters was a tough to catch smaller athlete while Arcega-Whiteside regularly bullies defensive backs who think they have him covered.

Costello threw for 332 yards on 21-of-31 passing and had four touchdowns and the one tipped interception. It was not a perfect performance by the third year player, but it was a positive night of leading the offense in a strong second half effort against a better than typical opening game opponent.

Stanford's offensive line faced a stacked box and constant blitzing that made it impossible to win the line of scrimmage. But Costello was only sacked once and often had time to let deep routes develop.

Chapman didn't have the same luxury. He was sacked five times and several were no-doubt-about-it coverage sacks. Even without Alijah Holder at cornerback there wasn't much danger of the Aztec passing game beating the Cardinal over the top. Freshman Paulson Adebo dropped a pick six but had two break-ups in his first college start.

The Cardinal defensive front got better as the game went on and the linebackers were able to make plays behind them. The front seven combined for seven tackles for a loss.

San Diego State had only 263 total yards and was 4-of-13 on third downs a year after Stanford couldn't get off the field against the Aztecs on key downs.

"A couple things off the bat, (it) was a tough, hard fought game. Two very [hysical football teams. We wanted to establish the run, which we never really got going. That'sa credit to San Diego State. They were good all last year. They are good this year. A lot of blitzing, a lot of stunting. We tried to stay with it as long as we could, but in doing so they left obviously JJ Arcega-Whiteside in particular one-on-one. We came back at halftime and said, 'Ok, let's just stop being stubborn. Let's take advantage of it.' You saw that at the end of the first half and then into the second half.

"Everyone will talk about Bryce's lack of yardage. Bryce doesn't care. We won the game. Bryce is a great football player. I want to say he missed one blitz pickup. The rest were phenomenal. He's a team player and a great football player.

"KJ Costello, I thought he played well. Not perfect, but I thought he played well. What we realized what the game plan was going to be, of course it was his game. He ended the season last year as the top downfield passer in America and probably going to start off this year about the same. He did a great job managing the pocket. Not every pocket is going to be clean with as many blitzes as they were sending. They got to him a couple times. A couple times he had to make throws with guys in his face. That's what big time quarterbacks do. We think the ceiling is extremely high for KJ and we're going to keep pushing him to improve.

"I thought our offensive line in the running game -- hey there's a lot of stuff in there. We had a couple creases and a couple runs that almost went. I can't say enough about their pass pro. It might be the most blitzes we've ever seen in one football game. For our quarterback to be able to push up in the pocket for most of the time and find some big plays down the field for our guys is a credit to Coach (Kevin) Carberry, the offensive staff for putting together a good protection game plan that allowed us to do that.

"I can't say enough about how hard and physical San Diego State played. They didn't make it easy. It was difficult. We talked about it this morning. Anybody who expected this game to be easy shouldn't show up. It was going to be hard, it was going to be physical, it was going to be won in the second half. That's what we talked about.

"We set something out social media wise early on and I want to mention it that throughout the year our guys are going to wear two ribbons on the back of their helmets. A yellow ribbon for sarcoma awareness and a lime green ribbon as well for lymphoma. With the thought that anyone who watches a Stanford football game, who is going through a tough time dealing with cancer, maybe gets a little jolt. Maybe gets a little peace, a little pump up to know we're thinking about them. I'm proud of our guys for agreeing to do that."

Is one of the biggest positive takeaways on offense tonight is that you can lose the running game, but there is enough talent in the passing game to still score 31 against a team that will likely go to a bowl?

"Yes. Tavita Pritchard ... did an outstanding job today. Game planning and us talking through the passing game with what looks good. We talked about it throughout the course of the game. As much as we wanted to be balanced and establish the run, we also needed a game like this. We needed a game to put on film. I told the guys we can't talk anymore. It's about playing. We needed a game where someone is going to put all those guys in the box and we can show what we can do outside. We have all the confidence in the world in our quarterback ... and our receiving corps and tight ends. We think it's one of the best groups in the nation. A part of it got shown tonight.

"People try to take JJ away, great. Trenton (Irwin) is going to have a great game. You saw Colby Parkinson make plays. Kaden Smith made some plays tonight. We have a great group. We have some young receivers who are still coming along. That's the goal to be as balanced as possible so if someone wants to take away a part of our game (then) great. We shift our focus and we find a way to take advantage of that.

How much of the problems with the run game were due to a redshirt freshman at center and new people at left guard?

"That wasn't the problem. The problem is they're really good and they dedicated themselves -- it's the most blitzes that maybe we have ever seen in my 12 years here. Constant -- we call it a cross dog where one linebacker goes one way and the other linebacker goes the other way. Then two guys off one edge with everyone stunting. Then a linebacker walks up likes he's over the center and then scrapes either side to blitz. It was constant pressure and constant movement. It was hard to really get a hold on guys. We got to the point that we thought, 'This is the game they want to play, great. We'll shift the focus and go down the field.' That's what we did."

How impactful was Irwin's play in the first half to cause the fumble after the interception?

"It was probably the play of the game. The ball was deflected and intercepted. Trenton has underestimated speed. He took off full speed coming back there. He saw the ball, he got it out and he he got on it. It was fight down there. It's not pretty at the bottom of those piles, fighting for the ball. He did exactly what we work on ... which is get into that fetal position, protect the ball. That's exactly what he did. We got the ball back and scored."

The defense had a little right first quarter and settled down: "I believe Lance Anderson is probably the most underestimated defensive coordinator in America. We had a rough first quarter. We had a couple times and they got out of danger. They had a long drive. After that we pretty much snuffed them out. Great job against the run against a team that is dedicated to running the football. Granted, their running back got a lot of carries and got more than a 100 yards. But our guys were stout, our guys were physical and made them earn it. There were a couple long runs but I think the rest of the time our guys were great. I thought we played well up front with a bunch of young defensive linemen. They gained experience as the game went on.

"I thought our linebackers were outstanding. I thought you saw where Bobby Okereke is with that speed and explosion. Sean Barton made plays. It was great to see Mustafa Branch go in there and make plays, also. Great to see Joey Alfieri on a third down use that speed and explosion to get around the edge and sack the quarterback. We want our guys to play fast, play physical. As our young defensive line continues to grow we'll get better and better."

Can you describe how KJ and JJ worked together on some of those plays where he's in single coverage but not wide open?

"The bottom line is that if it's one-on-one we're going to give him a shot to make the play. There was one time during the course of the game when KJ overshot him by about two yards. We talked a lot about JJ, make sure he keeps running and KJ give him a chance to make the play. We don't care if the DB is inside or outside. If it's single coverage -- if it's double coverage we go someplace else, which happened a couple times in the second half. We went to Colby in the middle. We threw the ball outside to Trent. Just being able to see where the safeties are and that's where KJ has really grown. I think he sees what KJ is trying to and he finds the matchups and finds the relationships. You saw him come off the No. 1 a couple times and find the tight end over the middle, find the check down. I thought he played really well."