MIAMI GARDENS — Miami Dolphins undrafted rookie outside linebacker Mitchell Agude continues to follow the career trajectory of Jaelan Phillips.
A California native who started his major college football career at UCLA, transferred to play for the Miami Hurricanes and is making his first professional stop with the Dolphins, which share Hard Rock Stadium with UM.
Okay, there are ample differences in their paths, too. Phillips was ranked a top high school football recruit and was a first-round draft pick in 2021, albeit while hit with plenty of adversity in between. Agude was a three-star prospect who first went the route of junior college before arriving at UCLA, and then he went undrafted upon completion of his season with the Hurricanes.
Regardless of how they got here, Agude understands it’d be wise to continue to follow Phillips’ lead now.
“I’m just going to have him as my role model,” Agude said at the team’s rookie minicamp earlier in the month. “Just make sure that everything he’s doing I’m doing times two, just to make sure I’m on his level, trying to be one of the greats.”
Phillips, who turned 24 Sunday, has 103 tackles, 17 for loss, and 15 ½ sacks in two NFL seasons after he exploded for eight sacks in 10 games in the 2020 fall at UM. Agude had 39 tackles, seven for loss, and four sacks last college football season at Miami.
He even had a similar logistical experience in his transition from the Hurricanes to the Dolphins. Agude, like Phillips two years earlier, moved out of his South Florida residence, shipped all his belongings back home to California and eventually learned it was all coming right back.
“It’s been a crazy process, but it’s a blessing,” said Agude, who, although he didn’t get an invitation to the NFL scouting combine ahead of the draft, trained locally at Bommarito’s Performance Systems in Aventura before his UM pro day.
Following rookie minicamp, Agude, looking to earn a roster spot in August training camp and preseason, has gotten a chance to make an early impression in organized team activities. That he did Tuesday, as one of the few Dolphins defenders with a practice sack — although pass rushers aren’t contacting quarterbacks.
Agude said he had a couple other offers to sign with teams after the draft, but multiple pre-draft interactions with Miami remained at the forefront in his mind.
“This organization really stuck out to me, just being in Miami,” he said. “It’s something I’m used to, being a California guy coming to Florida. I think it was just a good matchup.”
And he felt a bond with coach Mike McDaniel.
“Just the type of guy he is,” Agude said. “You can tell obviously he likes to have fun, but he’s serious and he really cares about the players. That really stuck out to me, just making sure that I’m at an organization that really cares about the team and wants to win championships.”
Agude’s pre-draft training revolved largely around maximizing his explosiveness as an edge rusher, but as prospects transition from combine-style training back to football, the physical aspects of the game become the emphasis.
“My physicality is one thing that I harp on, that I think coaches really like about me,” Agude said. “Just being able to be aggressive coming off the ball, smack someone if the pull is coming, dent in his facemask. Just being able to make someone not want to play. I want to put fear in someone’s head. When the ball is snapped, he knows he has to go against Mitchell Agude.”
Agude, a first-generation Nigerian-American, faced long odds to make it this far in football long before he was any kind of prospect. A skateboard accident as a 9-year-old once put him a coma for nearly three days before a miraculous recovery.
“Being able to come from a tragic mishap to being the man I am today, I give all the glory to God. He just keeps on giving me strength,” Agude said. “I take this as a blessing and opportunity. I’m living a dream. Only .1 percent of the world is in the NFL.”
Today, Agude participates in football with no lingering effects from the coma.
