The Baltimore coaching staff got its first look at offensive tackle Carson Vinson in a Ravens uniform at the NFL team’s rookie minicamp over the weekend.

“He’s big, he’s rangy, he’s got long arms, he’s high cut and he can really move,” Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said on Sunday. “He moves his feet really well. And then the thing is you see how young he is. I guess I look at that frame, and you say, ‘Man, we can grow so much into that.’ And he’s got to get in that weight room and get to work right away. And he’s kind of like a young colt out there, trying to learn how to control that frame.”

The Ravens added Vinson from Alabama A&M in the fifth round of the NFL Draft on April 26 after he had measured 6-foot-7 and 314 pounds at the NFL Scouting Combine.

“(Offensive-line) coach (George) Warhop, one of his favorite prospects,” Baltimore general manager Eric DeCosta said. “A small-school guy with tremendous size and strength. I can tell you he came into my office last week. He visited last week and almost broke my hand, and then he tried to shake my hand as he was leaving my office, and I just looked at him and said, ‘I’m good.’ But he is just a big, strong, physical, athletic player. I think coach Warhop is excited to work with him.”

Vinson is excited to work with Warhop, too.

“The biggest thing with me is I bring tenacity, and I’m an athlete,” Vinson said. “Those two things I really hang my hat on, and a lot of things that the Ravens organization can help me with, other things that I need to work on, is my technique. Coach Warhop, he’s a great coach, so there’s a lot of things like that where I feel like I’m in the perfect position to be the best player that I can be.”

Vinson called his selection by the Ravens “a blessing made in heaven” and credited his opportunity at the Reese’s Senior Bowl with helping to make that happen.

“That Senior Bowl was able to put me on a stage where I could really prove myself against the best-of-the-best athletes,” Vinson said. “Especially when you come from a smaller school, that’s one thing that a lot of people have questions about is if they can translate to a higher level, so the Senior Bowl was a blessing to get the invite and then to prepare myself to play well. It was just the icing on the cake.”

Vinson made 48 starts at left tackle for Alabama A&M. But he had the opportunity to make some of those starts for a larger program once he established himself with the Bulldogs.

“I’m from Cary, North Carolina,” Vinson said, “and N.C. State is right here. Duke is right here. North Carolina is right here. None of them wanted me. None of them wanted me, and I slipped through the cracks. But Alabama A&M, they found me. They found me, and they took me in with open arms, so especially when those schools came back around calling — I grew up a North Carolina fan, and I wanted to go to Carolina, and they came back calling around my junior, senior year, and I wasn’t going to go because they didn’t want me out of high school. So it was really just a chip on my shoulder that I took throughout college. And then I said, ‘OK, I’m going to do it from the school that wanted me first.’ …

“Everything I am right now is what Alabama A&M built, so credit to them and my coaches and the training staff. They got me together.”

Vinson was the only prospect selected from a Historically Black College or University in this year’s draft, and he feels the support of all those who went undrafted.

“Being from an HBCU,” Vinson said, “it is so special because over this entire process, when HBCU guys get past our space — we have our rivalries, and we have the teams where we go at each other — but after, when we get past it, we’re all one, big family. We’re all one, big thing, so I’ve gotten support from every single HBCU, especially after I got the Senior Bowl invite. After games, they’d say, ‘Hey, you’re going to do great things,’ so it’s all one, big family.

“And with the transfer portal and the way things are, a lot of guys feel like they have to transfer up to go to where they want to go. But it’s really important to me that I stayed at Alabama A&M for all four years, and it was the best four years of my life. And you can go anywhere you want to from the institution that you’re at, so it was really important for me.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.