GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- One of the more curious NFL Draft decisions made by Florida juniors was linebacker Vosean Joseph's.

Joseph opted to leave school early to enter the 2019 NFL Draft, prompting many fans who have watched him over the years to scratch their head wondering where that came from. While Joseph was certainly known as a hard hitter during his time at Florida, he often struggled with gap discipline and was the victim of over-aggression, many times to the detriment of the defense.

On Tuesday, though, Joseph announced on Twitter that he has been invited to the NFL Combine.

That's a huge piece of news for the former Florida headhunter. He should test well as a great athlete, something that could easily cause NFL teams to fall in love with his upside and potential. Already many have Joseph rated fairly highly in a relatively weak linebacker class.

The latest mock draft from WalterFootball.com actually has Joseph as a second-round pick, going to the Cincinnati Bengals at No. 42 overall.

Writes WalterFootball.com:

There's some concern that Vontaze Burfict's career could be in jeopardy because of many concussions. If so, the Bengals will need two linebackers to join Nick Vigil at the position. Vosean Joseph is a very instinctive and fast linebacker.

During his three years at Florida, Joseph flashed his speed repeatedly. He led the Gators in tackling with 93 stops as a junior, while also recording nine tackles for a loss, four sacks, five pass breakups, a quarterback hurry and a forced fumble.

The team's surprising win over then-No. 5 LSU was his real coming out party. Joseph was dominant and finished with 14 tackles, 3.5 tackles for a loss and 2.0 sacks, flashing just about everywhere as Florida went on to secure a pivotal 27-19 win.

There figures to be no shortage of NFL teams who will see that performance and believe they can replicate it on an every-Sunday basis, the question is simply how high they'll be willing to make that gamble.

In a league that has moved to faster, smaller linebackers over the last several years, Joseph absolutely fits the high-upside mold many teams have looked for. Now that he'll get a chance to show his skills and athleticism at the NFL Combine, you have to figure that his draft stock could improve considerably.

Joseph was a former three-star prospect according to the 247Composite, an industry-generated recruiting ranking. He was rated as the No. 42 outside linebacker in the country in the 2016 recruiting class, as well as the No. 643 overall prospect in the country and the No. 92 overall prospect in the state of Florida.

It's probably safe to say at this point that Joseph well outperformed those rankings and expectations and is well on his way to becoming an NFL linebacker.