Defensive lineman Boye Mafe got a hand after benching 225 pounds 21 times during the Gophers annual pro day before NFL scouts on March 16. (David Joles, Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Boye Mafe certainly has put up the numbers.

Two sacks, three tackles for loss and a forced fumble on the way to winning team MVP honors in the Senior Bowl.
A 42-inch vertical jump during the Gophers Pro Day, a 4-inch improvement from the NFL combine.
A 40-yard dash time of 4.53 seconds at the combine, not too shabby for the 6-4, 261-pound Gophers defensive end.

However, will those numbers add up to a singular digit — a first-round NFL draft selection — on Thursday night in Las Vegas? That's to be determined.

"It's crazy. It's something you think about as a young freshman,'' said Mafe, a former Hopkins High School standout whose athletic abilities have turned heads of NFL observers. "You talk about it, dream about it. You work at it, and now that you're in the situation, it's crazy. You can't put it into words.''

Mafe might or might not be selected in the first round. Several NFL mock drafts project him as a late pick in the first round on Thursday, while others have him as an early pick in the second on Friday. Should he get the nod in the first 32 selections, he'll become the first Gophers defensive player since cornerback Willie Middlebrooks in 2001 to be a first-round pick. Middlebrooks went 24^th overall to the Denver Broncos.

A three-star recruit coming out of high school, Mafe redshirted in 2017 and had a breakout game with six tackles in the 2018 Quick Lane Bowl victory against Georgia Tech. Last fall, he led the team with seven sacks and 10 tackles for a loss among his 34 stops as the Gophers rotated defensive linemen on their way to a 9-4 season.

Because of the NCAA's decision not to charge players a year of eligibility for the 2020 season, Mafe could have returned to the Gophers in 2022, but it was his time to take the next step.

"The biggest thing I've realized in this process is that my best ball is in front of me,'' Mafe said. "I played great for the Gophers and had a great career here, but I'd say my best ball is still in front of me. I feel like I haven't tapped into my full potential yet, so that's been my selling point to NFL teams.''

In turn, one NFL team will land a player who's eager to show that those impressive numbers from the combine and the Gophers Pro Day, along with the sacrifice that produced that potential, will translate into productivity at football's highest level.

"It's something you can't even fathom,'' he said. "All those days you came here by yourself and put in the work all the time. You didn't want to come and watch extra film. You didn't want to do extra rehab. But now you get to see how the work pays off.''