BALTIMORE — The unranked Graham-Kapowsin High School football team had just pulled up to Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas for a marquee matchup against Collins Hill — the No. 12 team in the country, led by future No. 2 overall NFL draft pick Travis Hunter — when fans from the Georgia powerhouse surrounded the bus and began to rock it.

“They were yelling at us that we shouldn’t be playing them, that we didn’t have a chance,” Graham-Kapowsin (Wash.) coach Eric Kurle recalled recently to The Baltimore Sun. Quarterback Josh Wood added: “They were chirping, saying we were worthless and this was gonna be an easy game.”

Vega Ioane, the team’s senior left tackle and already well on his way to filling out his 6-foot-4, 320-pound frame, stood before anyone else could react and told his teammates, “I got this.” He rose, exited the bus and made his way through the crowd, clearing a path for Wood and the rest of the players.

“When a team thinks that they’re just gonna run through a team and the biggest guy on the team is the first guy off the bus, that sets a fear factor,” Wood said. “They didn’t really have a guy his size. That definitely juiced us up because Vega was never the first one off the bus.”

Graham-Kapowsin went on to win 40-36, punctuating an undefeated state championship season — the first in school history — with Ioane sealing off a defender just long enough for Wood to deliver the game-winning touchdown pass with one second remaining.

“I was just showing up,” Ioane, the Ravens’ first-round pick in this year’s NFL draft, said Friday at his introductory news conference in Owings Mills, reflecting on the moment. “Being the guy that does the things that nobody else wants to do, I take a lot of pride in that.

“I’m never a guy that speaks before things need to be said, but when things need to be said, I’ll definitely be the guy to do it.”

Baltimore is betting that mindset translates. The Ravens believe the Penn State guard can help stabilize an offensive line that struggled mightily last season, particularly on the interior, and now moves forward without Pro Bowl center Tyler Linderbaum after his departure in free agency.

The selection of the self-described mauler also nods to the organization’s roots. Over the past two seasons, Ioane did not allow a sack and did not draw a flag — traits that could prove critical in protecting quarterback Lamar Jackson, who was sacked 36 times in 13 games last season, the highest rate of his career.

“We want to be a strong, imposing team, and we probably haven’t invested as many resources in the offensive line, recently,” general manager Eric DeCosta said. “I think this guy just really checked off every single box for us as a player: mentality, personality, ability, skill level, athletic ability, physicality, all those different things — at a very high level.”

‘He became a scholar of the game’

Ioane’s path to Baltimore was anything but linear, and at times felt almost serendipitous.

The youngest of nine siblings, he was born in American Samoa and raised in a cinderblock house his father, Aifai, built — no windows, no television. His older brothers played football, but even with a long lineage of Samoan players reaching the highest levels of the sport, none of them got nearly that far from the unincorporated territory in the South Pacific.

His opportunity began after the family moved to Washington state when he was in eighth grade — though even then, it required some craftiness and persuasion.

His mom Tausisi wanted him to focus on schoolwork. Wood, meanwhile, quickly befriended the “new kid,” saw his size, and envisioned him as a natural protector for his budding quarterback career. He convinced Ioane to sign up.

Except that Ioane didn’t immediately tell his parents. He continued attending Wednesday choir practice at church — even though it meant missing one football practice a week — to avoid being found out. Eventually, his older brother John intervened, telling their parents, “He’s got a chance to do some special things,” according to Kurle.

“He became a scholar of the game, really,” Kurle said. “He really just started learning the game and put in the time to be a great football player. He already had the gift of talent — a big, strong, athletic kid with long arms who, when he gets his hands on you, he’s gonna take you wherever he wants to go.”

Ioane recognized early what football could provide — not just for himself, but for his family.

It didn’t take long for that vision to sharpen.

As a sophomore, he shut down five-star defensive end and top-10 recruit Sav’ell Smalls in a matchup Wood said that Ioane “had been wanting all summer.” In a senior-year quarterfinal playoff game, he de-cleated a defender on a reach block, planting him on his back. In the state title game, he toggled to nose tackle, at one point tossed aside his foe and raced in for a sack, punctuating it with a crane pose.

“When the whistle blew it changed who he is and he played very physical and hard,” Kurle said. “Off the field, though he was always worried about his teammates and family and taking care of them.”

That performance arc led to a scholarship at nearby Washington, though Ioane decommitted after coach Jimmy Lake was fired. Choosing Penn State — and leaving his family across the country — was difficult but deliberate.

“A lot of times they had a lot of people living in the house,” Kurle said. “I think he saw what he needed. I think he also saw he needed to go away to Penn State and concentrate on football, and then in the future he would be able to take care of his family.”

At Penn State, the development was steady and intentional.

Over his final two seasons in Happy Valley, Ioane dropped nearly 20 pounds, from 345 to 323, refining both his body and technique. No one had to tell him — he understood what increased mobility would mean for his game.

He also prepared for games each week by covering his bedroom wall with photos and detailed sticky notes on opponents, letting the information settle in through repetition. He studied tape of Quenton Nelson, Zion Johnson and Trent Williams. After a loss to Ohio State, he went viral for hopping a railing to help an equipment staffer push a cart up a ramp.

His family, meanwhile, remained both motivator and grounding force.

“Excuse my language, but they used to beat my ass all the time,” he said, adding that he’s still not the biggest among them. “That’s how bad it got. They roughed me up a little bit growing up, but that’s just how the household was. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.”

‘It was very clear that he was a Raven’

By the time the Ravens were on the clock at No. 14, the choice felt less like a gamble and more like an inevitability.

There were flashier options — notably Miami edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr. and Oregon tight end Kenyon Sadiq. DeCosta even considered a trade back.

But Ioane had long been linked to Baltimore since the beginning of the draft process.

“When he got to come in here, and we got to spend some time with him, it was very clear that he was a Raven,” new offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. “What that means to us is really that he embodies the ideas, the values and all the things that we’re looking to put into place here with [head coach] Jesse [Minter] in the new regime.”

Where exactly he fits remains to be seen. Of his 2,309 snaps at Penn State, 1,879 came at left guard — currently held by veteran John Simpson, who signed a $30 million deal — which could prompt a shift for Ioane to the right side, which he also played early in his college career. But his versatility offers options.

His football IQ and athletic traits — reactive movement, strong hands, a tendency to “start the fight” in pass protection — stood out alongside the intangibles. DeCosta said that he’s reminded of former Ravens guard and Ring of Honor member Haloti Ngata.

“He also has this humility about him, which kind of sparks how hard he works,” Minter said. “He doesn’t assume he’s gonna be a great player. He puts in the work and the time.”

Ioane prefers to share those moments with the people who got him there.

He considered attending the draft in Pittsburgh but opted to stay closer to home. With a large family, the logistics were complicated — and the meaning, perhaps, clearer this way.

He hosted a draft party with about 80 guests, including roughly 40 family members, not far from where he starred in high school. When the call came, he placed a Baltimore hat on his father’s head. It stayed there for hours as the family gathered for photos.

In the background, Wood, now a quarterback at Idaho, held two phones, recording the scene on one and FaceTiming a friend on the other. The moment brought him back to a different conversation, years earlier, after shoulder surgery left him uncertain about his future.

“He was the first person I called to talk to,” Wood said. “That’s a memory I can remember forever because he got my mental state back to where it needed to be to play football.”

After winning a state championship together, they embraced for what Wood remembers as nearly two minutes.

For Ioane, the through line hasn’t changed.

“That’s my whole reason of [me] being here, making it this far,” he said of his family. “Those people are my why. I did this for them, and seeing that come to fruition, that’s a big part to me.”

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