photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas kicker Matthew Wyman (7) is congratulated by Cameron Rosser (46) after Wyman's 50-yard field goal during the second quarter on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2016 at Memorial Stadium.

Kansas senior defensive end Cameron Rosser already has earned a degree in finance and expects to finish his MBA within a year and a half.

Once the CIA learns of Rosser’s story, however, it’s conceivable the agency could give him an offer he can’t refuse and change his career plans. Rosser already has proven he has a rare ability to drop himself into foreign surroundings and assume an entirely new identity without anyone suspecting he didn’t belong.

Rosser, who had three sacks and four tackles behind the line of scrimmage in Saturday’s 24-23 loss to TCU, never had played tackle football when he decided to attend Kansas walk-on tryouts in Jan., 2013.

He joined the linebacker group, went through the drills demonstrated by the coaches, and moved well enough to make the team.

Still at risk of being exposed as an impostor, Rosser watched teammates’ every move on the first day of practice.

“I had to look at another teammate to see how to put the pads on,” Rosser said. “It was kind of funny. It was Darius Willis. I was like, ‘OK, that’s how you put your pads on.'”

He spoke those words to himself, never out loud.

“I tried to play it off like I played football before,” Rosser said.

How much did he fake?

“A lot, a lot,” Rosser said. “I had to fake almost everything. I just thank coach (Charlie) Weis for giving me the chance to play football.”

Rosser remembered having a locker in the corner of the room, near former defensive lineman Keba Agostinho.

“He was just huge,” Rosser said. “I was like, ‘Whoa, this is what college football is all about? I’ve got to get big like him.’ I immediately got into the weight room and started getting bigger.”

KU defensive coordinator Clint Bowen said he had no recollection of how Rosser joined the program, but just noticed him constantly improving through hard work.

“He’s a workout warrior,” Bowen said.

Former KU defensive backs coach Scott Vestal ran walk-on tryouts and informed Rosser he had made the team. Linebackers coach Maurice Crum, now coaching cornerbacks and nickelbacks for Indiana State, was Rosser’s first football tutor.

“Coach Crum took me under (his) wing when I first got here and was trying to show me how to do things when I got on the football field,” Rosser said.

KU’s defensive line coach, Michael Slater, called Rosser “a sponge, very coachable, just absorbs everything I give him and tries to apply it.”

Rosser can laugh now at what others laughed at when they watched his tackling technique early in his belated football career.

“Learning how to tackle was funny because I was in the linebacker room with Ben (Heeney), Jake (Love) and all those guys could hit,” Rosser said. “I was just arm-tackling, didn’t know what I was doing. I definitely learned a lot about angles.”

Rosser, listed at 6-foot-1, 240 pounds, said he was 5-4 as a freshman at Beverly Hills High in Southern California. He played baseball but not football. By the time he transferred to Silverado High in Las Vegas in the middle of his junior year, he had grown, but the rules prevented transfers from playing until sitting out a full calendar year, so he wasn’t able to play baseball as a junior or football as a senior.

He inquired about becoming a baseball walk-on at KU, but said he was told there were no open spots. His cousin and close friend Sean Miller, who had played offensive line at UNLV, urged Rosser to attend football walk-on tryouts. Rosser did a little research on the computer, made a call to the football office and showed up for tryouts.

A family counselor in Las Vegas, Miller said in a phone interview that he watched by himself Saturday’s TCU game on TV wearing the Kansas football, Size 4X, No. 46 jersey he had ordered online a few weeks ago.

“My voice was actually sore from screaming at the TV, cheering him on,” Miller said. “That was amazing for me, always hearing his name like that.”

Miller said he will attend the Nov. 12 Lawrence vs. Iowa State game to see Rosser, “in live action.”

“It’s really unheard of, coming out for football and start playing in the college level,” Miller said. “Most people have been playing since they were 4 or 5, not 19, almost 20.”

At the same time, Miller said he anticipated the call he received from Rosser, the one informing him he had made the team.

“I knew he was going to make it because of his speed, his size and his academics,” Miller said. “Schools like to see players who work hard in the classroom as well as on the field. He’s always worked hard in school. And even though he had never played football, he was very passionate about it, very knowledgeable.”

Middle-school flag football had been the extent of Rosser’s playing experience. The phone conversations he had with Miller from his Naismith Hall dorm room gave Rosser the inspiration to try the tackle version of the sport.

“I definitely think my body’s fresher and I think it’s an advantage because I don’t have those hits and wear and tear on my knees or my head or anything,” Rosser said.

His lack of football background never came up, Rosser said, until he was filling out an information sheet for Katy Lonergan, the school’s football media relations contact. On the line that requested players to write something interesting about themselves, Rosser wrote that he never had played high school football.

“The coaches started reading the media guide and said, ‘Oh, you didn’t play high school football?’ … It’s definitely not an easy game,” Rosser said. “I’ve had good coaching.”

The pupil, whose final two years of school at KU are paid for by a football scholarship, made his teachers proud Saturday when he made four tackles for 15 yards in losses.