The interview prep started last summer. If Mike Green had NFL dreams, Charles Huff had warned his talented Marshall defensive end, he would have to answer to NFL teams. There would be questions. A lot of questions. Probing, uncomfortable questions.

“I told him, ‘You’re going to go in these meetings and you’re going to have to explain this situation 3,000 times,’” recalled Huff, Green‘s head coach at Marshall for his two seasons at the school. “I said, ‘They’re going to attempt to get all of the details out of you.’”

As Green, the Football Bowl Subdivision’s reigning sack king and one of the NFL draft‘s top defensive prospects, fell out of the first round last week, those details had never seemed to matter more. He had first-round talent. What troubled teams was Green‘s “situation.”

At the NFL scouting combine in February, Green said he’d faced one accusation of sexual assault in high school and another from an “anonymous report” at the University of Virginia. He said the Cavaliers suspended him in 2022, before he transferred to Marshall University ahead of the 2023 season. Green, who was never charged, denied the allegations at the combine and said he had “done nothing wrong.”

NFL Network reported last week that “several” teams that had interviewed Green had taken him off their draft board after finding his explanations for the accusations “not satisfactory.” The Ravens were not one of them. They drafted him late in the second round on Friday night, No. 59 overall. Afterward, general manager Eric DeCosta said the team had looked into the allegations “very thoroughly” and “got as much information as we could,” relying on reports from scouts who visited Virginia and Marshall along with other sources.

“We understand the severity of what these allegations were, of course,” said DeCosta, who told reporters that he met with Green in his office for 90 minutes during a predraft visit. “But doing our due diligence, we are comfortable with Mike. I think the best is yet to come with him, and I’m glad we got him.”

As the Ravens’ rookie class converges on Owings Mills for the start of rookie minicamp on Saturday, their most polarizing draft pick has yet to speak. Green was not made available to reporters after his selection. His only public comments since the draft came in a message on X: “#RavensFlock Watch what I do for y’all.”

University of Virginia representatives did not respond to a request for information on Green‘s time at the school. The Charlottesville Police Department declined to release a police report from the incident that led to Green‘s departure from Virginia.

A spokesman said the department was notified of an alleged sexual assault on Aug. 26, 2022, at 1 a.m. No injuries or property damage was reported. The investigation into the incident has been suspended.

Green had agreed to sign a zero-tolerance policy before arriving at Virginia based on allegations made against him when he attended high school in Williamsburg, Virginia, a high school coach told The Banner. The coach did not detail the accusations against Green.

In interviews with three coaches who’ve worked closely with Green, a more detailed, if still-incomplete, portrait of the 21-year-old edge rusher has emerged. The coaches acknowledged the seriousness of his sexual assault allegations and his need to mature in college. They said Green has reckoned with his past and developed a more professional approach to football. And they understood why he might‘ve fallen in the draft, even as they raved about his character.

“He’s a top-10 draft pick. There’s no question,” Marshall defensive line coach Ralph Street said. “And then, on top of that, he’s top one when it comes to who he is as a person. And, again, I stand on that. I spent seven years on a military base [coaching at the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School]. I know about character. I know about integrity. That young man possesses all of it, all those traits. And I’m not even talking about the football aspect.”

Green had arrived at Marshall in search of a “fresh start.” He told reporters at the combine that he could have stayed at Virginia after his September 2022 suspension but that he wanted to “go somewhere that I was able to lay down a foundation.” (The Athletic reported Green was dismissed from the Virginia football team; university officials did not respond to a request for clarification.)

Huff, a Maryland native, said Marshall‘s staff “did our research” before Green enrolled. Huff said he spoke with Virginia head coach Tony Elliott, who was hired in December 2021, and other Cavaliers staff members who vouched for Green. A spokesman for the team did not respond this week to a request for an interview with Elliott or a member of his staff who’d coached Green.

“They were all very complimentary of him: ‘Hey, this is the situation. I don’t think he’s a bad kid. He is a good kid,’” Huff recalled Virginia’s coaches telling him.

Marshall officials were also “a lot more comfortable” with Green‘s transfer, according to Huff, because he’d never been charged with a crime. “There were no legal documents that said, ‘Hey, this is exactly what happened,’” Huff said.

An earlier accusation had followed Green from high school. Lafayette High football coach Andy Linn, who’s known Green since he was in the sixth grade, said a sexual assault allegation against Green late in his senior year led him to sign the zero-tolerance policy with Virginia. Linn called the accusation “such a minuscule thing.”

“It‘s not anything that as a head football coach — and I try to deal with everything — anything I even had to deal with,” he said.

Linn added: “If you want a guy who will vouch for Mike Green, I’d vouch for Mike Green 10,000 times. … He’s an unbelievable young man. He’s just a great kid who got caught in some bad circumstances, and the second one was the worst of circumstances, because he had to sign that poor thing to go to UVA.”

Huff, who left Marshall in December to take the head coaching job at Southern Miss, said he had no issues with Green‘s conduct at the Huntington, West Virginia, school. He impressed Thundering Herd coaches with his motor in practice — one Ravens scout who attended a workout last fall was surprised to see him sprinting on and off the field all practice long — and his leadership in team meetings.

Huff called Green a willing mentor to teammates who “got into issues,” even if they were never as serious as sexual assault allegations.

“A lot of times, young men, they do something that‘s embarrassing and they don’t like talking about it. They don’t want it brought up,” Huff said. “But Mike would stand up in front of the position room or stand up in front of the team and tell them about his story and how one decision or a group of decisions could almost ruin your career.”

Huff said Green learned to keep a smaller circle at Marshall, focusing his energy on his craft. He grew especially close with Street, his defensive line coach. During the season, the two would meet regularly at 8 a.m., Street said, honing Green‘s pass rush plan and picking up on opponents’ tendencies while they bopped along to music from G Herbo, one of Green‘s favorite rappers.

Green entered every game last season with a move for “every down and distance,” according to Street, who called Green a “phenomenal talent” and an “accelerated learner.” Street praised Green‘s processing as a pass rusher, his ability to pick up on cues at or after the snap and adjust his pass rush approach on the fly. Green racked up three of his FBS-high 17 sacks in games against Ohio State and Virginia Tech, but Street‘s favorite takedown was a late-game strip sack in a win over Sun Belt Conference power Coastal Carolina.

“Because we’d never beaten Coastal Carolina,” Street explained. Three weeks later, Green and Marshall won their first conference title since 2014 and first overall since moving to the Sun Belt.

Their player-coach bond extended off the field, where Street embraced Green like kin. “I don’t bring nobody around my family if I don’t trust them, if I don’t love them,” Street said. During the predraft process, Street‘s young son wondered why Green couldn’t hang out as often as he once had. Street told him he was getting ready for the NFL.

When the Ravens drafted Green, Street FaceTimed his son, then handed the phone to Green.

“They just went crazy for about five seconds,” he recalled.

Street called Green “a beautiful person” who attended his daughter’s gymnastics practices, played with his son and led Bible study groups on campus.

Green‘s former coaches were happy to see him land in Baltimore, one of the NFL‘s most stable and consistent franchises. But they were also a little surprised.

Linn, Green‘s high school coach, estimated that he spoke with 12 to 15 teams during the predraft process. The Ravens, he said, were not one of them. Street, who heard from “everybody” before the draft, said there was no indication that the Ravens would take him, either. Huff remembered the team reaching out for information, both from his staff and around campus, but said the Ravens were more “dialed in with him personally,” pointing to Green‘s visit to Owings Mills.

“I’m sure they did their work at UVA. I’m sure they did their work behind the scenes,” Huff said. “But they were really dialed in with him and getting to know him, which I commend them [for]. Because, when you have that type of issue that‘s out there, some teams didn’t even take the chance to try to get to know him. ”

Green‘s background was a red flag elsewhere. Huff recalled scouts who visited Marshall telling him that their front office “doesn’t want to go down that road.” Three years ago, even Ravens coach John Harbaugh had pointed to the team‘s own policy of “kind of zero tolerance.” In the wake of an NFL investigation into allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior against kicker Justin Tucker, the team has said the policy was never formalized.

Huff said he expected a “backlash” against Green during the draft and perhaps even after it. While some teams might be willing to overlook one sexual assault allegation, he told Green, others would have a harder time with two.

“I think that‘s just where we are in society,” Huff said. “He had a major situation that came up twice. Right, wrong or indifferent, it happened. So that‘s going to be something that a lot of people and organizations are going to be very cautious of.”

Linn said most 17- and 18-year-olds who leave for college are still “immature kids.” At Virginia, according to Linn, Green underwent a “slow progression of maturity.” At Marshall, facing an inflection point in his career, Green “changed whatever he needed to change,” Linn said.

“We’re blessed that he was in this situation, that he still earned the right to be drafted,” Street said. “And we’re also blessed that now the world will get to know him for who he really is, and not one what somebody else [was] whispering about, texting about, tweeting about. They will get to actually know this young man for who he is. And then as you get to know him, then, if you want to judge him, then you judge him.

“But if you don’t know him — and I don’t know why we have, in this society now today, you can go through the legal process, but people still will prosecute you off word of mouth or social media. It baffles me at times. But I’m just just so happy that, again, the world will get to know ‘Big Mike’ for who he is.”

Baltimore Banner reporter Brenda Wintrode contributed to this report.