Hulk Jones enjoys spotlight

BALTIMORE -- Kendell Jones laughed at the question.

How did you get the nickname 'Hulk'?

Sitting by the locker next to Jones, four-star offensive tackle Frank Martin also chuckled when he heard the query. Martin is big, too -- 6-foot-6 and 300 pounds -- but he looks like a ragdoll next to Jones. Almost everybody does.

Jones, the Killeen (Texas) Shoemaker defensive tackle, is 6-feet-5 and a smidge over 350 pounds of pure muscle. Everything really must be bigger in Texas.

In a way, the Alabama commit is all-encompassing. At the Rivals100 Five-Star Challenge Presented by Under Armour last weekend, Jones was easily the biggest prospect at M&T Bank Stadium. He even made camp coach George Hegamin, a former NFL player who is 6-foot-7 and 331 pounds, look miniature.

"I eyeballed him around 6-5 or so and he weighed in at 351 pounds with no bad weight at all," Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell said. "This is the kind of kid, at least physically, that if he stays injury-free and has a somewhat productive career in college, that NFL scouts will not be able to resist. He's a physical freak and just being around him in one-on-ones and having him run by you, the sheer force of his power is better than advertised. He just accidentally pushed OL coach George Hegamin at the end of a rep and sent him off balance. That's amazing."

Another amazing thing about Jones: The four-star prospect can squat 800 pounds. When asked about it, Jones looked even a little embarrassed that he could handle that amount of weight. It looked like he realized that, yes, he isn't exactly a normal teenage football player.

"I did it long ago," Jones said. "It was pretty easy but it wasn't easy at the same time because you have to be careful."

So how did he get that nickname? As the character is described, Hulk possesses immense superhuman strength and great invulnerability. That's not exactly why Jones landed it though.

Instead, Jones was just always bigger than everyone else for as long as he could remember. Starting in the eighth grade, Jones played offensive line, was moved to defensive line, dominated everybody and the moniker just stuck. Compared against his peers, even today, he looks like something out of a comic book.

"There is a picture on my Instragram and it's a transformation from my eighth grade year to now," Jones said. "It's a humongous transformation. I was smaller, but I was big small. I was smaller but I was bigger than everybody in my class in middle school. I was always the bigger one."

Rated as the ninth-best defensive tackle and the No. 86 prospect in the 2016 class, Jones had a nice performance at the Five-Star Challenge, but he didn't outright dominate the event.

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"I was bigger than everybody in my class in middle school. I was always the bigger one."

-- Kendell Jones

The Killeen Shoemaker prospect is still perfecting his techniques, still learning the finer points of playing defensive tackle. He's larger than everyone else, but big-time offensive linemen like he saw this past weekend are not going to back down one inch. If anything, Jones is a target.

"I need to keep learning techniques," Jones said. "Actually, that has probably been the hardest thing. As long as I have the right coaches and my dad is like a dad to me plus a coach, so as long as I have him I feel confident that my craft will get better."

Everywhere Jones goes, he's noticed. Like Friday night at Under Armour headquarters, when Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh was the guest speaker. Jones was singled out and Harbaugh had a look of awe and amazement when he saw Jones stand up. This is a coach in the NFL who was taken aback by the sheer size of a football player, especially one that young.

In malls, out clothes shopping, walking down the street, it's hard not to stare in wonder. Jones doesn't seem to mind. Not only is he used to it, but he takes that attention as a compliment.

"I do get looked at all the time," Jones said. "I mean, yeah. I'm just used to it. It can't get annoying. It's cool being noticed. They didn't even give me tights or socks here because they were too small. They wouldn't fit. I wouldn't mind squeezing those bad boys on though."