How Michael Penix Jr. sees this Huskies-Ducks Pac-12 title game -- and all his award hype
First, let’s debunk a cliche.
All his fairy-tale season — the perfect 12-0 record, the hype around him for the Heisman Trophy plus three other national player-of-the-year awards, his Washington Huskies (for now) holding spots in the college football playoffs and the Pac-12 championship game — this is NOT a dream come true for Michael Penix Jr.
No, the son of a former college running back at Tennessee Tech and nephew of a former college football player at hometown South Florida wasn’t throwing the football around yards, parks and schools in his native Tampa, Florida, at age 5 thinking about playing six college seasons. He wasn’t dreaming about playing quarterback at Indiana from 2018-21, then at Washington the last two years. He didn’t think about someday following his college quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at Indiana, Kalen DeBoer, to Washington when DeBoer became the Huskies’ head man.
He didn’t dream about tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee as a college freshman. Or of not playing more than six games in his four seasons at IU because of knee, shoulder, clavicle and sternum injuries plus another torn ACL.
No. Penix didn’t dream about any of what his college football career has become. That includes his real possibilities of winning the Heisman Trophy, other national player-of-the-year awards, plus the conference and the national championships as he and the Huskies enter their biggest game yet.
“Growing up, I wouldn’t have said that...As a kid I was just playing, having fun. And as a kid I can remember, I always talked about going to the NFL,” UW’s quarterback said Tuesday on the edge of the field inside Husky Stadium.
“It wasn’t really like, ‘Oh, I’m going to college!’ As a kid it’s like, ‘I’m going to the NFL!’”
Oh, Penix is going there.
After he and the Huskies beat Oregon in mid-October, ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. estimated Penix as the 21st-overall pick in the NFL next spring. Whether it’s first round or second draft day, Penix is about to fulfill his real dream in the pros.
But first, it’s a Friday for UW’s ages.
Penix and his Huskies, 12-0 for the first time since the 1991 season when they split a national championship with Miami, have a rematch with their rival Oregon (11-1) in Las Vegas. The Dawgs and Ducks are playing in the final Pac-12 championship game. UW, UO are bolting to the Big Ten and eight other fellow West Coast programs are leaving the conference to obliterate the Pac-12 next year.
But there’s oh, so much more at stake than the last Pac-12 trophy Friday night (5 p.m. channel 4).
Washington is third in the next-to-last college football playoff rankings released Tuesday, behind only also-unbeaten Georgia and Michigan. Oregon is fifth.
Friday at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas is basically a playoff game before the playoffs. The winner of UW-Oregon will almost assuredly be one of the four teams the committee selects on Sunday for the national semifinals.
The loser likely goes to a mere bowl game, without a chance at the national title.
“Man, it means a lot to this university. A Pac-12 championship win? That’s big time,” Penix said following UW’s practice Tuesday. “In this conference, everyone is chasing it. At the end of the game, there’s that trophy.
“This definitely means a lot to us. And we’re going to make sure we take full advantage of it.”
“It’s been a blessing,” Penix said. “I’m just super-blessed.”
Blessed with talent, too.
Penix has remained among the elite quarterbacks in college football his two seasons at Washington. One year after he set a UW record and led the country with 4,641 yards, he’s second in the nation (Football Bowl Subdivision) in yards passing with 3,899. He’s fourth in touchdown passes (32) and second in yards passing per game (324.9). He’s fifth in total offense per game (323.8 yards), seventh in points responsible for (212) and 11th in passing efficiency (163.3).
He’s a finalist for the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award, the Maxwell Award given to college football’s most outstanding player and the Walter Camp Player of the Year award. If he plays like he did in October when he and UW outlasted quarterback Bo Nix and Oregon 36-33 at Husky Stadium in what’s been college football’s game of the year so far, Penix may be invited to New York as a finalist for the Heisman Trophy. The Heisman award announcement is Dec. 9.
Penix helped make his teammate Rome Odunze one of three finalists for the Biletnikoff Award as college football’s best wide receiver. The Tallahassee (Florida) Quarterback Club foundation announced that Tuesday.
Penix also is a finalist for the national Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award.
How Michael Penix views his success
Bring up his candidacies for these awards, and Penix shoots a look that pierces, like one of those imaginary arrows he pantomimes shooting after his many huge plays for the Huskies. He gives a terse, one- or (if you’re lucky) two-word answer. He’d sooner talk about wearing Ducks green-and-gold around Seattle than about his Heisman hopes or individual accolades.
“What do I make of how I’ve played?” Penix asks back to a questioner. “I don’t grade my game.
“I grade wins. ...We’re 12 and 0. That’s all that matters.”
He and his Huskies passing game that burned Oregon for 316 yards and four touchdowns in that first meeting Oct. 14 have since struggled to beat heavy underdogs Arizona State, Stanford and Washington State.
Is the Washington offense humming as Penix wants it to be entering the rematch with the Ducks Friday?
“We are finding ways to win,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”
But bring up his play and being a finalist for those national-player-of-the-year awards in the context of what it says about his team, the Huskies’ 19 consecutive wins dating to 2022 and the success Washington is enjoying and earning?
Then you see, and hear, the essence of Michael Penix Jr.
“Yeah, it definitely goes hand in hand. It’s all about team success,” Penix said, already about quadrupling his normal answer word count about his accolades. “You know, for those awards you don’t usually see them go to people that’s not winning. As a team you get those awards.
“It’s all about the team. I couldn’t be in that position without my guys, without my offensive line being great, receivers being great. Running backs doing a great job, tight ends, just everybody working together to come out with wins.
“You know, once you come out with wins, those individual accolades, they just start showing up.”
Before the national awards, Penix (3,899 yards, 32 touchdowns, eight interceptions, 65.6 completion rate) and the Huskies have massive work to do. Oregon has steamrolled everybody since it lost at Washington seven weeks ago. The Ducks just beat Oregon State 31-7 last weekend. That was a week after it took a Penix late third-down completion to Odunze for UW to beat the Beavers in the Corvallis rain 22-20.
That’s why Washington is undefeated, higher ranked and the only team to beat the Ducks, yet is a 9 1/2-point underdog to Oregon for Friday.
Nix (3,906 yards, 37 touchdowns, two interceptions, 78.6% completion rate) has supplanted Penix in many people’s minds as the top Heisman candidate. Friday’s huge-stakes game could change that.
To hear his coach tell it, Penix and Washington winning the Pac-12 title Friday night would mean so much personally to the quarterback who never dreamed for this.
And — you guessed it — not for national quarterbacking awards.
“Michael has a heart of gold. He just cares so much,” DeBoer said this week.
“He wants it for his teammates more than he even wants it for himself. He wants it for this community.”
This story was originally published November 29, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
