Vega Ioane was a three-year contributor for Penn State at guard, and that included a 2023 battle with Jim Harbaugh and the eventual national champion Michigan Wolverines. Who knows what Harbaugh remembers from Ioane’s 39 snaps at guard in his team’s 24-15 win at Beaver Stadium, especially considering he was suspended from the game amid the Connor Stallions cheating scandal, but the two could be teaming up next season in Los Angeles.
Harbaugh is heading into his third season as the head coach of the Chargers, and though he’s already allocated considerable resources to fixing it, his offensive line is still a massive issue. Harbaugh’s teams always win through the line of scrimmage, so while Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt will both return from injury, Nicholas Rome of Saturday Blitz has mocked Ioane to the Chargers at No. 22 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft in his post-Super Bowl mock.
Vega Ioane lands with LA Chargers at No. 22 overall in 2026 NFL mock draft
In the two years since Harbaugh left the Big Ten for the NFL, Ioane blossomed into a star and probably the most well-known offensive guard in the country. Now, former Penn State offensive coordinator was largely responsible for that, using Ioane all over the offensive formation, sending him in motion pre-snap, and leveraging his ridiculous athleticism at 6-foot-4, 330 pounds to boost the run game.
Ioane played 614 snaps in 2025, nearly all of them at left guard, and was Penn State’s top-graded pass-blocking offensive lineman by PFF. He allowed just four pressures and no sacks all season, and the AP All-American is arguably the best interior offensive lineman in the entire 2026 class.
Harbaugh and the Chargers desperately need help on the interior, and Ioane could slide into the left guard spot next to Slater, who expects to return from the ruptured patellar tendon he suffered in training camp last year. With Slater at left tackle and Alt, who suffered an ankle injury midseason that ended his sophomore campaign, both back, the Chargers will have the best tackle tandem in the NFL, but that won’t be enough to protect Justin Herbert.
Herbert was the third most sacked quarterback in the NFL last season, getting dropped 54 times. He was pressured on 43.6 percent of his dropbacks, the highest in the NFL among full-time starters, and was put in constant passing situations by a lackluster run game.
Ioane wouldn’t solve all of LA’s problems on offense, but he’d go a long way to solving the biggest one if he does catch Harbaugh’s eye in the pre-draft process and ends up going No. 22 overall in Pittsburgh this April.