MOBILE, Ala. — Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins is reaching for his ceiling at the Senior Bowl this week.

The outgoing Georgia defensive end is hoping to boost his NFL Draft stock en route to becoming the next great Bulldogs’ D-Lineman in the professional ranks.

“I just have to maximize my opportunity here and put in the work, and everything will fall into place,” Ingram-Dawkins said after the opening Senior Bowl practice on Tuesday at Hancock-Whitney Stadium on the University of South Alabama campus.

The fact Ingram-Dawkins was invited to the Senior Bowl — while other outgoing UGA defensive linemen were not — speaks volumes about the potential NFL teams see in the versatile 6-foot-4 1/4, 278-pound player.

The Senior Bowl game takes place at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday and will be televised by the NFL Network.

Ingram-Dawkins, who believes he can play defensive tackle or defensive end, is the first to acknowledge there’s room for his game to grow.

“I have to improve my edge rushing, said Ingram-Dawkins, who led UGA defensive linemen with 536 snaps last season, “and I have to attack my weaknesses.”

Ingram-Dawkins has the size, quickness and athleticism NFL teams seek, and he became consistent enough this season to decide to forego his senior season and declare himself eligible for the draft.

“I was thinking about coming back to Georgia, but I felt like I had done everything I wanted to do at Georgia,” Ingram-Dawkins said. “When I made the decision to come to Georgia Coming out of South Carolina, it wasn’t just about trying to go to the league — I wanted to graduate from the University of Georgia, and I got that done this past December, and my family and I made a business decision.”

Ingram-Dawkins said he did his homework before making the decision, also visiting with the Bulldogs’ coaching staff.

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“I talked to the coaches and they gave me the right information to make the decision,” Ingram-Dawkins said, “and the decision was made to come out.”

Ingram-Dawkins had 3 sacks last season for the Georgia defense, also making 17 tackles and finishing fourth on the team with 8 tackles-for-loss at what is known to be a demanding defensive end position in the UGA scheme.

Georgia’s season schedule — among the most difficult in the nation — forced Ingram-Dawkins and his teammates to grow up fast.

“Honestly, being to three SEC championships and winning two, I think the SEC Championships is bigger than winning the Natty,” Ingram-Dawkins said, explaining the difficulty of navigating what was arguably the most difficult SEC schedule a team has played in the CFP era.

“We pride ourselves on trying to win the conference every year,” He said. “It’s definitely harder to win an SEC Championship (than a national championship), yes.”

It took another level of maturity — and “mental bandwith,” as Kirby Smart called it — for the Bulldogs to persevere.

“We had a lot of hard games on the road, and that was different for us,” Ingram-Dawkins said, referring to road losses at Alabama and Ole Miss, and physical battles on the road at Texas and Kentucky.

“We had a lot of high competition games that were back to back to back,” he said. " We really had to stay focused week in and week out.”

It’s the same for Ingram-Dawkins and his four UGA teammates at the Senior Bowl this week, with every rep in every practice under the microscope.

“Everyone out here is good, it’s like iron sharpens iron,” Ingram-Dawkins said. “We’re all here to get better.”