2023 NFL draft: Former East High star Siaki Ika selected in 3rd round by Browns

SALT LAKE CITY — Siaki "Apu" Ika's college football career took him from the hills of East High to the Bayou of Baton Rouge before following former LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda to Baylor for his final two seasons.

Next stop? Cleveland.

The Browns selected the 6-foot-4, 358-pound defensive tackle with the No. 35 pick of the third round (No. 96 overall) of the 2023 NFL draft Friday night in Kansas City.

Ika, nicknamed Apu, was a third-team All-American by Phil Steele Magazine and first-team All-Big 12 selection as a senior in 2022 for the Bears when he started in 11 of 12 games at nose tackle and totaled 24 tackles, two tackles for loss, five quarterback hurries and a pair of pass breakups.

The former Big 12 defensive newcomer of the year in 2021 finished his Big 12 career with 47 tackles, including 27 solo stops and four sacks before declaring for the NFL draft and accepting an invitation to the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.

"He's another player that we really identified early in the scouting process," Browns general manager Andrew Berry told Cleveland-area media late Friday. "The first thing that stands out is his size, but he actually moves really well for a bigger defensive tackle. ... We saw him as scheme-versatile, even though he played in an odd front at Baylor. We really enjoyed our time that we spent with him this spring when he visited us earlier this month."

Graded at 6.23 as a prospect, which puts him in "eventual starter" category, Ika ran a 5.39 40-yard dash with a 1.88 10-yard split and added a 7.8-second finish in the three-cone drill and 4.99-second 20-yard shuttle run.

That led the former four-star recruit in 2019 who played in 13 games as a reserve for the national champion Tigers and totaled 17 tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss as a freshman to being rated as high as the No. 3 defensive tackle by Pro Football Focus leading up to the draft, just behind former Georgia lineman Jalen Carter and Clemson's Bryan Bresee, who were both first-round picks Thursday night.

Cleveland received the No. 98 pick as compensation from the NFL when former vice president of football operations Kewsi Adofo-Mensah was hired to become the Vikings general manager in 2022. With that extra pick in play, the Browns added another run stuffer in Ika to pair with free-agent signing Dalvin Tomlinson for a total of 682 pounds to anchor the defensive line.

In Cleveland, he'll also join former BYU pass rusher Sione Takitaki, who re-signed with the Browns on a one-year deal after missing part of last year with an ACL injury.

But Ika's power "really stood out" to Berry, even when the Browns were reviewing film from as early as his freshman year at LSU.

"Even at a young age, he was a big human being," Berry said. "Even though he didn't always know what he was doing — he was just part of the rotation — you could see a really big, disruptive presence in the middle of the line of scrimmage. When he was allowed to attack in the way we will task our line to do so, we thought it would be really transferrable."

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