POLISHED APPLE
TEAM-FIRST ATTITUDE SO FAR IN CAMP
T HE pads came on for the first time Saturday at Camp Shurmur.
“You’ll definitely have to embrace the thud,” running back Jonathan Stewart said before practice at East “Thuderford.”
So it was time for Saquon Barkley to embrace the thud.
“Real football,” Eli Apple said. “Now it’s gonna be a lot more thumping, a lot more talking, it’s gonna be a lot more energy.”
This was the official beginnings of the transformation of the Giants into the kind of bully-ball team Dave Gettleman craves, the kind of heavy-handed team former coach Ben McAdoo never could give New York.
If there is a symbol of what the New York Football Giants aspire to be, it is No. 71, Will Hernandez … Barkley’s rookie enforcer.
There was that one time when some trash-talking defender … well let Derek Elmendorff explain why, with apologies to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Giants will have a different personality with The Shurmurnator on their upgraded offensive line.
“The whole [North Texas] defense was talking trash the entire week. I remember we were on the goal-line and Will absolutely buried this dude, like it was bad,” Elmendorff told The Post by phone.
“I heard the dude just say ‘F this,’ jogged off the field and just did not come back. He just never came back to the game.”
Apparently “F this” wasn’t an isolated instance.
“I heard it a few times,” Hernandez told The Post. “It happened throughout our four years there.”
For those four years, Elmendorff was the right guard and Hernandez was the left guard for UTEP. Elmendorff has witnessed countless examples of Hernandez, 330 pounds of brain and brawn, destroying an opponent’s will with his mauling, brawling belligerence.
“And he’s going to keep trying to break it,” Elmendorff said. “Day in and day out.
“When he’s taking ’ em to the ground, he’s the kind of guy that he’s gonna be talking in your face while he’s on top of you and kind of trying to grab-you-bythe-throat kind of guy. He’s not really a trash talker, but his actions on the field, that’s just the kind of guy he is.”
The Shurmurnator won’t be able to similarly intimidate most NFL defenders, but you can bet he will try.
“Our head coach said that if you were in a fight, you’d definitely want that guy on your side,” Elmendorff said. “And no one wanted to fight Will. He had that intimidation factor about him for sure.”
Hernandez is built like a Coke machine. He is a merciless merchant of mayhem. A throwback to a different era.
“My high school offensive line coach was a Steelers fan, and he would always talk about Alan Faneca,” Hernandez said of the longtime Pittsburgh guard. “And so what I would do is I would search him up on YouTube a lot when I was in high school, and I really enjoyed watching him play. So I would say I modeled my game after him a little bit.”
As well as the poster boy for bully-boy himself, the notorious Richie Incognito. In the predraft buildup, Hernandez was characterized by NFL Network’s Mike Mayock as someone who “doesn’t like people” on the football field.
“That’s the kind of attitude he plays with,” Elmendorff said. “The nicest guy off the field. He’s one of the coolest, most humble dudes off the field. But as soon as he passes that white line, that’s exactly right, he doesn’t like anybody. He really doesn’t when he’s on the field.”
Hernandez chuckles, “You have to take that attitude that you don’t like ’em in order to come through with the vio- lence, with the aggressiveness.
“Of course everything’s controlled, but you just have to make it that way.”
Elmendorff was asked what Hernandez will mean to Barkley.
“Ask [former UTEP running back] Aaron Jones of the Green Bay Packers,” he said. “Saquon, and really the whole Giants organization, got a guy that they can build off of their running game for the future, and now that you have Will on the left side and [Nate] Solder right next to him, I think that’s gonna be one of the best sides in the league to be honest. I’m excited to see what Saquon can do.” As is the rookie Shurmurnator. “I’m extremely proud to be blocking for a great running back like that,” Hernandez said. “I’m gonna give him 100 percent of everything I got every play with always in mind protecting him and helping him get as many yards as he can.”
Under Shurmur’s watchful eye, there were raging tempers, no fights, no injuries. Only a football team building its toughness. Therefore, a successful day in East Thuderford. Barkley embraced the thud. They all did.
“He’s definitely gonna help me get better,” Hernandez said. “I’m glad he’s here playing for the Giants because when you get that competition every single day, the games turn out to be a lot easier.”
Off the field, Hernandez is a pussycat who overcame long financial and academic odds, brought his mother to tears at the unexpected sight of the new Las Vegas house he bought for his parents.
“They’re gonna get someone that they’re never gonna have to read about in the newspaper that, ‘Oh, he got a DUI,’ or ‘Oh, he got in trouble here,’ ” Hernandez said.
It was The Shurmurnator who kept his UTEP team together during its 0-12 nightmare season.
“It didn’t matter if we were 0-6, 6-0, 0-8, whatever,” Elmendorff said. “Every single week he demanded our absolute best. That’s what we gave him, because what are you gonna do, make him mad? That’s someone you do not want to make mad.”
“F this” if you do.