Courtesy of Colorado State

Back home with his family in New Jersey, Mohamed Kamara kept waiting for the inevitable.

Always motivated in his time at Colorado State, he views his prolonged weekend wait as another reason to prove people wrong.

“It was good. It was longer than it needed to be, but it was good. It was a dream come true,” Kamara said. “I told some people to tell the NFL to watch out.”

On the final day of the 2024 NFL Draft, Kamara heard his name called, the 158th pick overall, going in the fifth round to the Miami Dolphins. He became the first Ram selected since Trey McBride went to the Arizona Cardinals in 2022.

Kamara is coming off a fantastic season where he earned Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year honors, following in the footsteps of NFL All-Pro Shaquil Barrett, who earned the same distinction back in 2013. Now the two are teammates after Barrett signed with Miami this offseason.

Kamara led the conference with 13 sacks and 17 tackles for loss, ranking fourth with his 1.08 sacks per game and ninth in TFLs at 1.4 an outing. His sack total was the third best for a season in school history, his tackles for loss ranking eighth.

He closed his Colorado State career with 30.5 sacks to rank second behind Clark Haggans at the school and second in Mountain West history, trailing Boise State’s Curtis Weaver. His season totals in tackles for loss ranked eighth, while his 45.5 in his career sit third at CSU, fifth in the conference.

Kamara will be looking to make a defensive roster which ranked third in the league in sacks (56.0), but in the bottom half of points allowed (21.4 per game). He was the second edge rusher Miami selected, going with Chop Robinson out of Penn State with the 21st overall pick in the first round.

“I talked to everybody, so everybody was on the table to be honest,” Kamara said. “I think they have a culture there that I want to be a part of. That’s what it is. I’ll approach it the same way I did every day at practice, just trying to get one percent better. Not everything is going to pan out great, just like today and yesterday and the day before that. I’m not going to focus on the negatives, just keep focusing on the positives.”

The last time Miami drafted a CSU player was 2001 when it selected linebacker Rick Crowell.