Unheralded to Unstoppable, Indiana's Mikail Kamara Eyes Defensive Player of Year

LAS VEGAS -- Mikail Kamara didn't hesitate.

Indiana football's redshirt senior defensive end already knew the number, perhaps because his mind hasn't let him stop thinking about it since turning the page toward 2025.

The single-season Indiana record for sacks is 16, set by Greg Middleton in 2007.

Kamara doesn't just want to break Middleton's mark this fall, he wants to shatter it.

"My goal is 20 sacks," Kamara said Tuesday at Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas.

"You got to aim high." To Kamara, reaching such a sack count -- at least 16.5 -- is the key to unlocking his biggest personal goal in 2025.

After a standout 2024 season in which he earned consensus first-team All-Big Ten honors, Kamara aspires to be the conference's Defensive Player of the Year.

"I just know if I break the sack record, that should cement it all," Kamara said.

"So, that's killing two birds with one stone." Kamara is a believer in manifestation.

He said before the Hoosiers' College Football Playoff loss to Notre Dame last season that the only way to see the future is to manifest and pray about it.

And after all, he'd practically manifested Indiana climbing to those postseason heights long before the rest of the nation caught on.

But to a degree, Kamara exceeded his own expectations in 2024.

He said he merely hoped to earn All-Big Ten recognition, be it on the first, second or third team.

This time around, he's reaching for the stars.

And after a 10-sack, 15-tackle-for-loss campaign in his first season at Indiana, Kamara has earned the right to dream -- and speak -- bigger.

It's music to the ears of senior linebacker Aiden Fisher.

"It's something where if you speak it into existence -- I think that's something he really believes in, and it's worked for him," Fisher said Tuesday.

"I just think his confidence level is at an all-time high.

The things he wants, he's going to chase and he's going to go get.

"It's really good to hear him talk about these things, because I think he does a great job chasing these things and keeping them at the forefront of his mind." Kamara arrived at Indiana with the belief he was an elite player.

He had, as Indiana coach Curt Cignetti described it, a "fantastic" 2023 season at James Madison, during which he registered 17.5 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks en route to second-team All-Sun Belt honors.

But he wasn't entirely convinced.

He wasn't playing in the Big Ten or SEC, and he hadn't proven himself consistently against Power Four opponents.

A year that ended in All-American honors squashed all remnants of doubt.

"I know [I'm elite] after the season I had last year, but it's not even based on the accolades," Kamara said.

"It's just the way I carry myself.

The work I've put in is what makes me feel like the best.

Especially this past offseason, I feel like I took zero days off.

I didn't have a bad workout.

I've worked my butt off.

So, that's completely where all the confidence comes from." The Ashburn, Va., native isn't necessarily trying to prove anything to NFL scouts or the media.

He wants to show himself, his family and his teammates how great he believes he can be.

It's about the people in his corner, he said -- those who've been there since he was a zero-star recruit in 2020 out of Stone Bridge High School.

Still, Kamara aspires to be seen.

He wants to be put in the same category nationally as some of the Big Ten's best pass rushers in recent memory, be it Penn State's Abdul Carter or the Ohio State trio of Chase Young and Nick and Joey Bosa.

Kamara was one of 16 players to earn preseason All-Big Ten recognition .

He's made several way-too-early 2026 NFL mock drafts.

But that's part of his qualm.

He feels he's looked at as "one of a few," but he wants to be in his own realm.

It's a central reason behind why he returned to Bloomington for another year despite arriving in 2024 with plans to turn pro after one season, and why he didn't take a day off this summer.

"I feel like I'm still undervalued," Kamara said.

"I think the way I see myself, a lot of people will never see it, so I think I'll always have that chip on my shoulder.

I want to be the best, and I don't think anyone really looks at me as the best.

"I want them to see it's Mikail and then the other ones." Awards and recognition aside, Kamara is driven by a personal desire to physically dominate his opponents.

He wants offensive linemen to leave the field with nightmares and battle wounds stamped by his cream-and-crimson No.

6 jersey.

"When my opponent walks off the field, I want them to be like, 'Six, he just kept going.

Like, six is a dog,'" Kamara said.

"I want, when people go and ask, 'Yo, how good is Mikail Kamara?' I want them to be like, 'Oh, he was a dog.' I don't want them to be like, 'Oh, he's good.

He just has a lot of media.' I want them to show scars of what I did to them.

"That's the way that I attack football.

I just want to be the most physical dude on that field." It's a nod to Kamara's physical maturation.

When Cignetti first turned on Kamara's film, he was impressed not necessarily by power, but athleticism.

Cignetti brought footage of Kamara to James Madison's staff room at least four times, he said, and he was enamored by Kamara's quickness.

"He was like a blur," Cignetti said Tuesday.

"Really was." Part of it stemmed from Kamara's size.

James Madison listed him at 235 pounds when he signed in 2020.

He's added nearly 30 pounds, transformed his offseason workout routine and overcome early-career injuries to his shoulders and knee.

Armed with experience and a rearview mirror full of adversity, Kamara has steadily grown from an unheralded recruit to one of college football's premier edge rushers.

In 2024, he had more sacks and tackles for loss in a single season than any Hoosier since 2008.

He led the nation with 73 total pressures, according to Pro Football Focus.

Kamara's on-field success is rooted in a bevy of traits perhaps as impressive as his numbers.

"He's a great technician," Cignetti said.

"He's an extremely smart guy.

He's got really good explosive power.

Great initial quickness.

He can run too, now.

Guy's an athlete, and he's got good football instincts." Indiana's theme for 2025 centers around building on a historic 2024, one in which the program won double-digit games for the first time ever and emerged as one of college football's best stories.

But that, Cignetti adamantly says, is in the past.

And as the Hoosiers look to level-up, Kamara wants to do the same.

Off the field, he feels he can grow in his film-room preparation process.

But his biggest gains will come on the gridiron -- in the moments when, in years past, he may not have had the motivation to seize them.

"Definitely on the field, as far as being hungrier to make plays," Kamara said about his next step.

"Not even just the clean wins, the pretty wins, but those ones where I'm sprinting for like 15, 20 yards, watching the quarterback scramble around.

Or even running down, seeing a tight end catch a pass and going down and forcing fumbles.

"So, it's really just trying to make some of those more relentless plays, and that should carry into my stats." Kamara said his favorite Cignetti cliche is the patented fast, physical, relentless slogan -- it's the one he said speaks to him the most.

It's also the area Cignetti feels Kamara has the most to grow.

"I think just consistency in performance," Cignetti said.

"A lot of these college guys, they flash, and then they get a little older, and they flash more.

Now, this is it for him.

Doing it day-in, day-out, play-in, play-out, game-in, game-out at a high level.

Fast, physical, relentless, flying around." The 23-year-old Kamara has already taken a step forward this offseason.

Along with Fisher and senior receiver Elijah Sarratt, Kamara represented the Hoosiers at Big Ten Media Days -- an honor Cignetti reserves for his best leaders.

Fisher, who's shared a defensive meeting room with Kamara since 2022 at James Madison, said Kamara has begun elevating teammates in a way he hasn't done before.

"The way he's been able to carry himself after last year and everything he does, he brings people with him," Fisher said.

"He's bettering people at all times.

Everybody's getting better because they're around him.

In years past, when he works out, he goes alone.

He likes to be alone watching film, he likes to be alone working out, but now he's bringing everybody with him.

"So.

that's making the entire room better.

He's a way better leader now than he was, and he's always been a great one.

It's really special to see." Perhaps nothing illustrates Fisher's point better than Kamara's bucket list for 2025.

His desire to win Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year is second to the Hoosiers winning the College Football Playoff National Championship.

Making it to that stage is "by far" the highlight of the season, he said.

Kamara wants to be the best, but he also wants the Hoosiers -- and his teammates -- to maximize their potential.

He's no longer the 18-year-old freshman trying to make his mark and keep a scholarship.

Instead, he's a leader and cornerstone player on one of college football's most rapidly rising programs.

Indiana already knows that.

Kamara intends to make it undeniable nation-wide this fall.

"I just think I'm a really good player," Kamara said.

"I feel like I'm very versatile.

I play the run; I play the pass.

I can do it all.

I'm not wearing an Ohio State jersey.

I'm not wearing an Oregon jersey.

So, we kind of get under looked being at Indiana.

Just kind of how it is, and it's kind of how it's always been in my career.

"But I feel like I'm a hell of a ball player." And he wants the postseason trophy to prove it.

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