From January through mid-March, Christian Hackenberg’s introduction to the NFL would begin every morning at 5:30 at Jordan Palmer’s Southern California home.

Palmer, an eight-year NFL veteran, spent 2 ½ months preparing Hackenberg for life in the pros, which Palmer says the 21-year-old the Jets selected in the second round on Friday is ready for.

“He’s going to be confident enough to be the face of the franchise for the Jets when that time comes for him,” Palmer said Saturday. “In the meantime, he’s going to be a guy that’s going to get in line and learn and be humble. I think it’s a great fit.”

Palmer met Hackenberg at an Elite 11 camp when Hackenberg was in high school. He watched his college career at Penn State, where Hackenberg was a star under Bill O’Brien as a freshman then struggled as NCAA sanctions took their toll on the Nittany Lions’ roster and the transition from O’Brien to James Franklin stunted Hackenberg’s growth.

Palmer worked with Hackenberg last year before his junior year then took on a more official role after Hackenberg left college in January to prepare for the NFL. They started by watching every college snap Hackenberg took and dissected what went right and wrong.

“There’s a franchise player in there,” Palmer said. “He showed it his freshman year and he was put in a very difficult situation the last two years. The first thing is pulling that out.”

The Jets took North Carolina State cornerback Juston Burris in the fourth round Saturday and tackle Brandon Shell from South Carolina in the fifth round, a pick they traded for with Washington. All of the attention still was on their second-round pick, though, because of how polarizing the Hackenberg pick is.

Hackenberg’s mechanics suffered at Penn State as he played behind a porous offensive line that got him sacked 103 times. He began to look at the pass rush instead of downfield and had trouble setting his feet without getting hit.

There were plenty of reasons for his struggles, but Hackenberg had to sit back and listen to the critics pick him apart in the pre-draft process. He could not blame the offensive line or Franklin without sounding like he was making excuses and shifting the blame.

All he could do was take it.

“He’s just been a dartboard for three months,” Palmer said. “Now, all of that is irrelevant. He’s a Jet.”

Hackenberg rented a house down the street from Palmer and they began to work a week after his college career ended. They would do classroom work in the morning, then go to the field after breakfast. After lunch, Hackenberg would work with a personal trainer, then he would have 3-5 hours of film study at night.

Palmer had Hackenberg watch film like NFL quarterbacks do. They adopted the Cardinals, where Palmer’s brother Carson is the quarterback. As the Cardinals prepared for playoff games with the Packers and Panthers, Hackenberg watched each team’s last five games on Monday, their base pressures on Tuesday, sub-package pressures on Wednesday, third-down calls on Thursday and red-zone situations on Friday. Before the game, Hackenberg would compare notes with Carson.

“We literally knew more about the game than anybody watching it,” Jordan said.

After the Cardinals lost in the NFC Championship game, they broke down the Broncos before the Super Bowl. Then they studied the 2015 seasons of Carson and Jacksonville’s Blake Bortles and the rookie season of the Colts’ Andrew Luck. Hackenberg would have to give Jordan Palmer a report every morning off his film study, and Palmer would try to teach him about the coverages he did not recognize.

“He’s just obsessed with football,” Palmer said. “He loves it. I think it’s a slam dunk. For me, all this negative stuff is hysterical to me because so many people are so wrong.”

Palmer said all of the issues Hackenberg has dealt with in college makes him ready for New York.

“To have to deal with the amount of adversity he dealt with, he is well-equipped to take on you and your colleagues and the fan base and AFC East, too,” Palmer said. “He is in a good position to do that.”