They came to the NFL scouting combine from Greece, from Cameroon, from Nigeria by way of Scotland, talented pass rushers who’d found football by accident in the United States and were now making it their purpose.

If the 2022 draft is indeed a showcase of a “strong class” of edge defenders, as Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said Wednesday, it will also have a distinct international flavor. Two of the first four pass rushers taken could be players born an ocean away. Another potential second-round prospect, after emigrating stateside, didn’t pick up the sport until his sophomore season of high school.

The trio still found their way to stardom, and to Indianapolis, where Ravens officials are trying to find the next big piece of a pass rush that needs big-time help. For Purdue’s George Karlaftis, Penn State’s Arnold Ebiketie and Michigan’s David Ojabo — for the many others who followed similar paths — football success came partly because of where they started, not in spite of it.

“Looking back, I’m glad I went through the path that I did,” Ebiketie said Friday. “I learned a lot along the way. I mean, I’m here now. That’s all that matters.”

Karlaftis, a potential top-10 pick and three-time All-Big Ten Conference selection, is the son of a West Lafayette, Indiana, mother and an Athenian father. He lived in Greece until he was 13, when his father died.

“Growing up, football wasn’t a thought at all,” said Karlaftis, but water polo was. He was a good enough goalkeeper to make the country’s under-16 national team as a 13-year-old. Training was rigorous. With his club team, he’d often work out from 5 p.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. at a water polo facility.

Keeping your head above water, Karlaftis learned, was paramount. So around age 10, he started his unique treading training: With his shoulders and chest kept above the waterline, he’d hold a chair for 10 minutes. All these years later, Karlaftis believes that’s where he got his powerful legs from.

When he moved with his mother back to Indiana as a teenager, Karlaftis didn’t know what a first down was. He couldn’t throw a spiral. But he was already an athletic specimen, more powerful than his peers. Finally, his friends and high school coaches convinced him to try football.

“I was like, ‘I’ll try out. It can’t be too hard,’ ” said the 6-foot-4, 275-pound Karlaftis, who soon emerged as a top-100 recruit nationally. “I started playing about a year later, and I just completely fell in love with it.”

Stardom did not come so easily for Ebiketie. A second-team All-American for the Nittany Lions after a 9 ½-sack 2021 season, he grew up in Yaounde, Cameroon, the hometown of Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid. When he was about 12 or 13, Ebiketie’s father got a job in Washington and moved the family to Silver Spring.

Sports helped smooth his transition. Ebiketie had played soccer in Cameroon, and he picked up basketball and track and field in the United States.

“I think the biggest adjustment was to learn the new culture,” he said. “And for me, it wasn’t as hard, because I did it with my family and I always have sport — getting to play a sport, getting to make new friends and meet other people. So that’s why the transition for me, I think I was blessed.”

He was not blessed with great size, however, not at first. When Ebiketie started playing as a strong-side inside linebacker during his sophomore year at Albert Einstein High School, he said he weighed about 200 pounds. As he bulked up, he moved to the edge.

His breakout senior season — 36 tackles for loss, 21 ½ sacks — came too late to attract much college attention. Ebiketie initially committed to Towson before earning a late scholarship offer from Temple. He redshirted as a freshman for the Owls, appeared in one game in 2018, then 12 games in 2019, before finally starting in 2020.

After transferring to Penn State, the 6-2, 250-pound Ebiketie got what he called the “perfect seasoning” for a breakout year. Now he’s leaning on former Nittany Lion and Ravens rookie outside linebacker Odafe Oweh for advice on how to make the next jump.

“You have some people that’s been there for a long time, a lot of vets,” Ebiketie recalled Oweh telling him. “So it’s just about getting up to speed and putting extra time, learning the scheme and getting adapted to it.”

Maybe no first-round prospect, though, has traveled further than Ojabo. Born in Nigeria, he moved to Scotland with his family in 2007. A search for an American boarding school led him at age 15 to New Jersey’s Blair Academy, where he soon befriended Oweh, a Nigerian-American whose own football education was just beginning.

At first, the 6-5 Ojabo wanted to play basketball. Then he matched up against a 7-footer for the first time. His aspirations changed quickly. He figured his experience in soccer wouldn’t prepare him any better for football, either.

“The toughest thing was definitely the contact aspect,” he said. “I mean, coming from basketball, if you bump someone too hard, it’s a foul. In soccer, you bump someone too hard, it’s a foul. In football, if you’re not bumping somebody, you’re not playing.”

The summer before Ojabo’s junior year, he told the Blair Academy football team’s coaching staff he was interested in playing. Before long, there were Big Ten schools interested in a player who hadn’t even played. The first football helmet he put on was a Rutgers helmet, furnished at a summer camp. The next was a Maryland helmet.

Finally, Ojabo got around to playing for Blair Academy. At first, he was pushed around by smaller teammates and opponents. “That didn’t sit right with me,” he said. His growth was rapid. In his first season playing organized football, he had six sacks. As a senior, he had 8 ½.

His unorthodox path to football, he said, “just gave me versatility, from the hand-eye coordination to the footwork. I played soccer, so I’m good with my feet; basketball, good with my hands. Just being nimble, too — for a big guy, I can move. So all of it just contributes very well to football.”

After not playing as a freshman and getting only reserve duty in 2020, Ojabo teamed with eventual Heisman Trophy finalist Aidan Hutchinson to form one of the country’s best pass-rushing tandems. Ojabo finished with 11 sacks and five forced fumbles, his rapid ascent shooting him into the first round of mock drafts, often paired with the Ravens at No. 14.

With a show-stopping combine performance Saturday — asked whether he could outdo Oweh’s sub-4.4-second 40-yard-dash time, Ojabo smiled wryly — his stock could surge ever higher. Ojabo joked that team scouts and officials are still trying to figure out “who David Ojabo is.”

“They’re all trying to get to know me, trying to get to know who I am as a player,” he said. “I’m a Scottish guy born in Nigeria and just trying to learn — learn this new sport and just be the best at it, honestly. … I’m sure they see [potential]. I’m here. I got myself here. So I’m sure they see something.”

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