Maema Njongmeta

Njongmeta was born in Cameroon, and moved to the United States in 2004.^[1]

Njongmeta's hometown is Buffalo Grove, Illinois and attended Stevenson High School and Aptakisic Junior High School. In his high school career he notched 196 tackles with 34 going for a loss, 19 sacks, three fumble recoveries, and two forced fumbles.^[2] He committed to play college football at the University of Wisconsin over other schools such as Iowa State, Navy, and Tulane.^[3][4]

In Njongmeta's first two seasons in 2019 and 2020, he redshirted and only appeared in one game in which he recorded no statistics.^[5] In the 2021 season, Njongmeta totalled four tackles in two games.^[6] In week three of the 2022 season, Njongmeta tallied his first career interception, as he helped the Badgers rout New Mexico State 66–7.^[7] In week eleven Njongmeta recorded a sack to help end a drive, but Wisconsin ended up losing to Iowa 24–10.^[8] In week twelve, Njongmeta notched 2.5 tackles for loss and one sack, as helped the Badgers become bowl eligible by beating Nebraska 15–14.^[9] In the Badgers season finale, Njongmeta had a career performance, tallying 12 tackles with 2.5 going for a loss, and 0.5 sack, but Wisconsin fell to Minnesota 23–16.^[10] Njongmeta finished his breakout 2022 season with 95 tackles with 11.5 being for a loss, 3.5 sacks, a pass deflection, and an interception.^[11] For his performance on the season, Njongmeta was named third team all-Big Ten by the media.^[12][13] Ahead of the 2023 season, Njongmeta was named to the watch list for multiple awards: the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, the Rotary Lombardi Award, the Bednarik Award, and the Butkus Award.^{[14][15][16][17]}