SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Mac Jones wants to call him “The Flyin’ Hawaiian.”And while 49ers rookie De’Zhaun Stribling, who hails from Honolulu, has shown off his speed in training camp, the team’s cornerbacks are more impressed with another facet of his game.“I ain’t gonna lie — No. 1 is his hands,” said cornerback Deommodore Lenoir.Said nickelback Upton Stout: “I like the way he uses his hands and his speed. He’s gonna be a good addition for us.”Are the 49ers too old?Vic Tafur and Matt BarrowsThe rookie’s hands measure 10 inches, a big number for a receiver. To put that in perspective, they’re the same size as 6-foot-6, 332-pound defensive tackle Alfred Collins’ mitts.And Stribling’s been using them in different ways: at the beginning of his route to get past cornerbacks playing press coverage; at the top of the route to create separation; and, most notably, to catch passes in traffic.“I would say him just catching away from his body, just kind of trusting his hands,” Lenoir said of Stribling’s strength. “He’s got that catch radius where he’s gonna catch it away from his body. He’s got strong fingertips.”Apart from missing three days of practice with hamstring tightness, everything appears to be going according to plan so far with Stribling, a surprise — and highly critiqued — selection at pick No. 33 in April.Wide receivers coach Leonard Hankerson said Sunday the rookie has mostly worked at the F and X positions in training camp. That suggests he’ll help fill the role Jauan Jennings (F) had in recent seasons while also stepping in at times for Mike Evans (X). He hasn’t played as much Z, the position the team was hoping Ricky Pearsall, out for the season with a lingering PCL injury, would play in 2026. Instead, it looks like that spot will go to Deebo Samuel and others.“No one here is wired exactly how Ricky is,” Kyle Shanahan said Saturday. “They’re all a little bit different. So you do lose a big part of what we were planning on. That’s where guys do have to step up. That’s what gets frustrating when guys like Stribling tweak a muscle and stuff, because, yeah you want guys to step up, but you’ve got to train them to do it. They’ve got to work to do it. They’ve got to be out there to be able to do it at an NFL level, which is coming real fast.”Stribling seems like a particularly good replacement for Jennings, who’s now with the Minnesota Vikings. For one, he was a strong blocker in college, something that became Jennings’ calling card during his six years in San Francisco.He’s also looked efficient on contested catches in the middle of the field, which was another Jennings’ forte.“It’s not just that he’s catching it,” Hankerson said. “He’s strong. He’s attacking it. He’s stepping back to (the ball). With the contested catch situation, he’s able to come down with a lot of those. Right now, I can’t really recall him putting one on the ground.”Lining up at the F or slot position has created regular matchups with Stout, who’s also having a strong camp. He and the other cornerbacks have more license to play aggressively this year, which suits their styles and has led to plenty of tipped passes and incompletions in the middle of the field. That close coverage has vexed receivers like Jacob Cowing and Jordan Watkins, with Watkins in particular having an issue with contested catches early in training camp.But Stribling has looked confident with a cornerback or safety draped over his back.“He’s going to be a dog,” Stout said.Where Stribling could separate himself from Jennings is, well, separation. While Jennings clocked a 4.72-second 40 before the 2020 draft, Stribling’s this year was 4.36 seconds. The 49ers hope that translates into a lot of yards after the catch and the occasional deep ball when defensive backs creep up to clog the middle.“I call him the Flyin’ Hawaiian because he’s so fast,” Jones said. “… He has, like, a second gear when the ball’s in the air. Some guys are really fast, but when the ball goes up and your eyes go up, you slow down. But he doesn’t do that, so it’s pretty impressive.”