Four years before he committed to play defensive back at Indiana, Cedarius Doss feared he’d played his final down on a football field.
The Birmingham, Ala. native was unranked by major recruiting sites coming out of Ramsay High, as his SAT score wasn’t high enough to play in Division I. So Doss, lacking a plethora of options, enrolled at Division II Tuskegee University.
Doss redshirted in 2019 after appearing in just two games. He anticipated a better opportunity for playing time as a sophomore, and spent time after his redshirt year getting mentally and physically prepared for that.
But in January 2020, Doss started to have headaches. They were unrelated to football, and weren’t the result of any injury or incident. He’d never suffered a concussion. They just came out of nowhere. These headaches lasted for large portions of his days, and he endured them daily for two weeks straight. He didn’t like going to the doctor unless he was dealing with something serious, so he first called his mother, Betty.
Cedarius told her about the headaches and said he wasn’t feeling well. Betty recommended he visit an urgent care center. He said he’d rather come back home — around two hours away from Tuskegee — and have her accompany him. So Cedarius went to an urgent care center at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, where Betty works in the Counseling Center, and the doctors ran a scan.
She’ll never forget the update she received from that visit.
“I was at work. He called me,” Betty told The Daily Hoosier in a phone interview. “He said, ‘Mom, I have a brain aneurysm.’ I said, ‘What?’”
She genuinely didn’t believe it. She thought Cedarius misheard the doctor, or maybe he was kidding.
He wasn’t.
“I thought he was joking,” Betty said. “I remember telling him, ‘I can’t call for you, you have to call me on three-way with that nurse.’ And the nurse practitioner said that they did find it, and they had set him up an appointment to see a neurologist.”
Cedarius didn’t know what an aneurysm is until he asked the doctor what it means. When they explained it to him, he was shocked.
Luckily, for Cedarius, his aneurysm was small — around the size of a nickel. Aneurysms become life-threatening when they rupture, and larger aneurysms are more likely to rupture. According to the Cleveland Clinic, up to six percent of people in the United States have an unruptured brain aneurysm; ruptured aneurysms are more rare.
Some larger aneurysms need to be surgically removed to prevent any major damage. Cedarius’ was small enough that the doctors deemed a procedure unnecessary.
But even though he avoided the more severe condition, this diagnosis still changed his life. Suddenly, classes, workouts, and practices weren’t his biggest concern. Cedarius visited neurologists and doctors nearly every day for three to four months, so they could monitor the aneurysm, and ensure it wasn’t growing and wouldn’t rupture.
He did his best to keep up with his other responsibilities, but it caused problems. He couldn’t play football while he went through this, and he missed some classes.
“Some of my teachers at Tuskegee, they kind of beared with me,” Cedarius said in a phone interview. “And some of them, I had to end up dropping one or two classes because it got to a point where I was just missing too much. And they didn’t want to just bear with me and kind of work with me.”
That academic impact of the situation was difficult. But it caused even more worry for his athletic career.
A cloudy future
One day that summer, in 2020, Doss hung out with some friends from high school at his grandmother’s house. They played basketball outside and had fun together like normal.
But then, one friend challenged Doss to a race. They lined up and took off, and Doss made it only five yards before his head started throbbing, and he became dizzy. He immediately knew something was wrong and stopped.
“I just walked away and I started crying,” Doss said. “My dad came out, he’s like, ‘Man, what’s wrong with you?’ I said, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to play football or do anything if I can’t run five yards without my head hurting or being dizzy.’”
Later that day, he posted on social media that he would stop playing sports because of his health issues. He eventually calmed down and reconsidered, but he still had very real fears that he wouldn’t be able to return to football.
Tuskegee shared those concerns. Golden Tigers staff didn’t know whether Doss would be able to play — for his sophomore year, or ever again. And because of those doubts, they pulled his scholarship.
So Doss entered the transfer portal, still unsure if he’d be able to suit up at all. Before doing anything else, he had to decide whether or not he wanted to continue playing.
He continued to make frequent doctor’s visits in the coming weeks and months, and took all the medicine and vitamins they prescribed. But as his friends and peers played on, all Doss could do was watch from a distance. That was hard to endure.
“Just walking around, just being around the sport, it crushed me,” Doss said.
His headaches eventually started to go away, and he tried running again. By then, the dizziness dissipated. The doctors later cleared Doss to play again.
Still, he remembered how he felt outside his grandmother’s house. It was a simple decision, but at the same time, very complicated. Cedarius leaned on his family and his faith as he charted his path.
“At one time, he didn’t think he would play again. Cause he didn’t know if this would be the end of his career,” Betty said. “And I told him, ‘Whatever you decide. And when you pray to God, if God gives you a sign to let it go, then you let it go. But if not, we’re going to be behind you 100 percent.’ And he kept playing.”
Back on the field
Once Doss knew he wanted to keep pursuing football, the next step was figuring out where. Predictably, programs weren’t lining up to recruit an undersized player — currently 5-foot-8 and 179 pounds — with major health uncertainties.
A coach he’d previously worked with offered him something at a school in Texas, but his family encouraged him to go wherever he wanted to be and join that program as a walk-on. He already had friends and former Ramsay teammates at Austin Peay, so he joined the Governors.
Austin Peay underwent a coaching change as Doss transferred in spring 2021, so the staff didn’t know about his health issue at first. The brain aneurysm didn’t impact his ability to join the team. Once he did, he ensured coaches and trainers became aware of the situation, but assured them he was cleared to play.
Betty was a little nervous for Cedarius to play football again after the aneurysm. She was never going to forbid him from returning to the field and make him abandon his dream, but she did have concerns that needed to be assuaged.
“I doubted for a minute. ‘Could he play? Would he play?’ But just confirming, seeing the best neurologist here at UAB, he kept telling us, ‘He’s fine to play,’” Betty said. “He kept convincing me that he’s seen worse cases, and he’s said, ‘You can have one (an aneurysm) and you just don’t know it.’ So I just was with that, praying, and what the doctor kept telling us, and the fact that they continued to scan, the fact that he was fine, I was OK with it.”
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Austin Peay played three non-conference games in fall 2020, but its Ohio Valley Conference schedule was postponed to the following spring. Doss transferred ahead of that spring slate, but he didn’t fully join the team until fall 2021. He used that spring season to get back on the field and get used to playing football again during practices. The staff let him suit up for several weeks without playing, just to go through pregame warmups and be on the sideline for game-day environments.
After so much time away, Doss needed time to get used to being a football player again. The headaches and dizziness didn’t return, but the situation created mental hurdles he had to clear to start feeling like himself again on the field. He said it took seven or eight months to feel comfortable and not have the headaches and dizziness linger in his mind.
Doss appeared in just one game for Austin Peay in fall 2021, but that season was critical for him to put his health scare behind him.
“Once I went through that season, the spring season, we went through the summer together, worked out, doing 7-on-7, all that type of stuff. Get to fall camp, I had a good fall camp, I was competing, having a blast being with the guys,” Doss said. “It started to get so natural, and I started to feel back like myself once I got to fall camp.”
Breaking curses
Even without the brain aneurysm, Doss already had obstacles to overcome.
He couldn’t afford his own place when he first got to Austin Peay, so he slept on his cousin’s couch for his first semester in Clarksville, Tenn. But he said things like that only added to what he’s “already blessed with.” He drew plenty of motivation from simply getting an opportunity to make something of himself.
At Austin Peay, Doss was able to make up the classes he had to drop at Tuskegee when he had the aneurysm.
Not many in Doss’ family have had the chance to attend college. When he graduated from Austin Peay in December 2023, he became the first male on his father’s side of the family to become a college graduate.
Attending that graduation meant a lot to Betty and the rest of the family.
“I was so overwhelmed, I cried the whole time,” Betty said. “I’ve had some males graduate on my side (of the family). But to watch him tell me, ‘I’m going to break generational curses,’ coming from where we’re from, constantly hearing murder after murder, or constantly hearing, you know, things that could go wrong.”
Doss’ desire to go to college on a scholarship guided his high school athletic career. In addition to football, he also played basketball and baseball growing up. When three sports became too much to juggle with schoolwork, as a sophomore, he gave up baseball. He swapped basketball for track as a junior, realizing his size would limit his future opportunities on the court. And he understood track would be a short-term endeavor, knowing how hard it would’ve been to earn a track scholarship after starting it that far into high school.
He knew football was his best sport, the one that could get him to college. In fact, Doss became a defensive back with the next level in mind. He grew up playing running back and safety, but a cousin recommended he stick with defensive back in high school, suggesting he’d have a better chance at obtaining scholarship offers in the secondary.
That proved to be a wise decision.
Breaking out
Just as he did in the classroom, Doss made the most of his opportunity on the football field at Austin Peay.
He earned a bigger role for the Governors in 2022, appearing in eight of the team’s 11 games with four starts. He missed three games with an injury, but returned for the team’s final game of the year, against No. 8 Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Austin Peay lost that contest, 34-0, but Doss will never forget that day. With more than 30 family members in attendance, playing the top team from his home state, with some old friends on the other sideline, he grabbed his first career interception off current Crimson Tide starting quarterback Jalen Milroe.
“Going out there and competing and catching an interception, it was just a great feeling. It was almost like a dream,” Doss said. “Cause being from Alabama, you always wanted to either play for Nick Saban or play against Nick Saban. So that was just a crazy and amazing moment for me, I know especially for my family.”
That moment set the stage for Doss’ breakout 2023 season. He was placed on scholarship ahead of the season, which was meaningful after everything he’d been through. And he rewarded the staff’s faith in him with a huge senior year. Doss recorded 2.5 tackles for loss, one forced fumble, three interceptions, one blocked kick, and seven pass breakups across Austin Peay’s 12 games. He finished as the highest-graded cornerback in FCS by Pro Football Focus, which also named him a first team FCS All-American. Only four FBS cornerbacks in the country finished with a higher PFF grade last season than Doss.
Betty always believed in Cedarius, but even she was shocked by his high level of play last year. She recalled seeing a coach who left Austin Peay for another job before the 2023 season speak highly of Cedarius from afar.
“I read something that one of the coaches from Austin Peay — and I don’t even think he was there last year, I want to say he got a new job and he was coaching somewhere else, and he’d seen that Cedarius had gotten All-American and all that. He said, ‘It’s truly a blessing to watch a young man that walked on the field, walked on to college, and he said this one day, he said, I’m gonna make All-American one day.’ And he did just that his senior year,” Betty said. “He said, ‘This is truly a blessing to watch this young man and how he performed.'”
Doss thought 2023 would be his last year of college football, and he wanted to go out with a bang. He hoped to regain a year of eligibility — the same COVID year all other college athletes who competed in 2020 received, but he wasn’t automatically granted. So he had to apply for a waiver from the NCAA to get one more year in college. While he waited for that to play out, he declared for the 2024 NFL Draft after the season ended, in case he wouldn’t get the extra year of eligibility.
By the time Doss received word of his approved waiver, in late January, it was too late to join a new program in time for spring semester classes. He entered the transfer portal, and then spent the ensuing months working out and helping at Ramsay while waiting to complete the process during the spring portal window.
Indiana reached out to Doss in mid-March and quickly offered a scholarship and arranged a visit. He felt a strong connection with safeties coach Ola Adams, which helped sell him on IU. And the more he learned about head coach Curt Cignetti’s vision, he knew he wanted in.
“Most coaches would call you, offer you, and just kind of wait a week or wait two weeks to talk to you again. But I talked to them every two or three days. So I was building a great relationship with him (Adams),” Doss said. “And once I got to Indiana on a visit, everything he was saying on the phone kind of checked out for me. I loved the atmosphere, and I wanted to be a part of coach Cig’s turnaround.”
A crazy ride
Doss arrived in Bloomington over the summer, and he quickly impressed coaches and peers.
Outsiders may see his junior college and FCS background and question whether he can continue excelling at the highest level. But teammates know the dedication that path requires and respect Doss for it.
And he’s maintained the high effort since he joined the Hoosiers. Cignetti touted Doss’ competitiveness and said that impressed the program’s strength and conditioning staff. His peers felt the same way.
“He’s a grinder. First day he came in, he’s putting extra work in, after workouts, after practice with us. He’s been pretty impressive so far. He’s a really good athlete,” linebacker Aiden Fisher said. “His resume speaks for itself. He’s a pretty impressive player.”
Doss spent much of fall camp working at cornerback and rover, and gives Indiana flexibility in its reserve options in the secondary. He’s unlikely to be a starter for IU, but he’ll see the field, whether on defense or special teams.
But after the journey Doss took to Indiana — “a crazy ride,” he described — that opportunity could take him far. He’s had to battle for everything he’s achieved throughout his ascent from a low level of college football to where he is now. And he’s continuing to dream big — he said he’s aiming to top his impressive individual 2023 performance this year and help IU compete for a conference title.
After everything Cedarius Doss overcame to become a Hoosier, he’s earned the benefit of the doubt.
“I just stopped doubting him and just watch him play,” Betty said. “And he has went up higher and higher. From a walk-on to all-conference. Player that didn’t even have a scholarship, to the performance he did this last year (and) the year before. Just to watch him grow, it’s been amazing. It’s truly been a blessing.”
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