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Looking back, it was a case of too much, too soon.

Daniel Ross was about as young as a professional football player gets when he first joined the Edmonton Eskimos in 2014.

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For all the things he may have taken for granted at the time, the one he didn’t count on was how quickly the opportunity could be taken away.

Straight out of junior college at Northeast Mississippi, the six-foot-five, 305-pound defensive tackle was the youngest player the Eskimos coaching staff assembled at the time had ever had on a CFL roster.

Ross wasn’t even of legal age to buy alcohol in his home state of Kentucky when he signed on with the team, only turning 21 eight days later.

Instead of returning to play his junior year in college, he all of a sudden found himself playing for the Eskimos.

“I was 20 years old, it was crazy,” recalled the native of Louisville, now 23. “I had to grow up a lot over the years and I did, so they gave me another opportunity and I took full advantage of it.”