Huskies, revival artist Michael Penix can’t stop Michigan’s run over UW to national title
Michael Penix Jr. limped to the sideline. He was holding his stomach with his left hand.
His throwing arm did all it humanly could.
Kalen DeBoer didn’t wait for his quarterback to get to the Huskies’ sideline. The coach who taught Penix at Indiana, brought him to Washington, led him to historic heights, hugged his guy. He put his arm around him and tapped him on his low back, three times.
Together six years ago. Together through the end.
“Just wanted to make sure he knew I how felt about him,” DeBoer said later.
For two, wondrous, program-turning years, Penix did it all. He led the Huskies with consecutive 4,200-yard passing seasons. He was the best quarterback in the country the last two seasons. He revived a UW program that was going through head coaches and regime changes instead of its pedigree of title runs.
In the end, after six college seasons, four season-ending surgeries, two knee reconstructions, a transfer and a transformation of Washington football, the only thing Penix did not do is win a national championship.
Perfect Michigan and its top-ranked defense assured that Monday night.
The Wolverines took away Penix’s signature deep-passing game that had thrilled the Pacific Northwest and eventually the nation the last two seasons. And Washington’s defense got run over by the Wolverines’ smash-mouth offense that ran for 304 yards.
The Huskies’ perfect season, 21-game winning streak and bid for a first national title in 32 years ended with a 34-13 loss to Michigan in the national championship game at NRG Stadium.
Emotionally?
“I’m hurt,” Penix said.
Physically?
“I’m not healthy, but I’m all right,” said Penix, who had his right, non-throwing shoulder wrapped under his uniform and appeared to need medical tests outside the locker room down the tunnel following the game.
“I’m not healthy, but I’ll be there,” said the projected top draft choice in this spring’s NFL draft. “I’m good. It’s nothing major. I know that, for sure. I talked with the doctors and stuff like that. It’s nothing major.
“I didn’t want to let anything take me out of the game.
“I’ve been through too much.”
Dillon Johnson, who tried to play on an injured ankle but couldn’t effectively, walked from the tunnel where he had stayed on the edge of the field to watch the title celebration by UW’s new Big Ten Conference rival beginning next fall.
Johnson eventually walked into the UW locker room, limping, with his head bowed.
DeBoer then came out into the tunnel. His eyes had tears.
His heart had pride.
As Queen’s “We Are the Champions” played outside over the Wolverines, DeBoer said: “I am proud.
“We love each other.”
Penix used the same word. In the locker room, the Huskies hugged each other. And hugged some more.
“In the locker room,” Penix said, “man, it’s just a lot of love.”
Unfortunately for the Huskies, for the first time in 22 games, they had more love than plays.
Penix completed 27 of 51 passes for 255 yards against Michigan (15-0), but only one of them deep, as Washington (14-1) was denied its third national championship in school history and first since 1991. The runner up for the Heisman Trophy this season threw two interceptions. He continually overthrew receivers.
“I’m going to take accountability for the offensive side of the game,” Penix said.
“Man, it sucks. You know, we played a good team. They did some good things. I feel like on the offensive side of the ball, we missed a lot of opportunities. Opportunities where we needed to execute the most. ...”
He ended the game battered by Michigan’s pass rushers that knew he had to throw. His linemen were helping him off the turf after almost every throw.
Unlike seven days earlier after their Sugar Bowl national-semifinal win over Texas, the Huskies didn’t stay on the field beneath purple confetti falling upon them.
Monday night, the confetti was maize. It fell on Michigan’s blue.
The Huskies hugged each other and walked off the field, into an offseason of almost.
When asked what he was telling Penix as he walked with him off the field for the final time and was tapping him on the back, DeBoer thought of Penix following his former offensive coordinator at Indiana to UW, when the Huskies hired DeBoer to be their head coach in November 2021.
DeBoer marveled at Penix for trusting him and his coaching staff to “packing up and moving across the country...to restore the (UW) program.
“I just can’t tell you how much that means to me, to have that trust from someone like Michael,” DeBoer said. “Because this was his last crack at it, two years ago when he made that move.
“I hope Husky Nation just always holds him in the highest regard. I think they will. I expect nothing less than that, because I think they understand also what he’s given all of us.”
Michael Penix Jr. off
Penix uncharacteristically overthrew open receivers many times Monday night. He overthrew Ja’Lynn Polk twice, and All-American wide receiver Rome Odunze on what would have been a touchdown in the open field in the second quarter with UW trailing 14-3.
Penix missed on 14 of his first 32 passes.
Immediately after his forced interception with two Wolverines in his face and feet, Penix limped to the sideline. Trainers and a team doctor checked him. He flexed his right ankle, and re-entered the game for the next drive without missing a play.
While Penix misfired, the Huskies’ defense recovered from getting run over in the first quarter to continually keep UW in the game with third-down stops.
Credit to co-defensive coordinator Chuck Morrell, an assistant for DeBoer when the Huskies’ head man began his head-coaching career in 2005 at the University of Sioux Falls, for making the adjustments that changed the game, as he has after other poor starts by Washington’s defense this wondrous Huskies season.
Michigan defends the deep throw
A key to this title game was how Michigan would try to pressure Penix. The Wolverines rarely did. After they blitzed Alabama’s inexperienced and weaker line almost half the time in last week’s Rose Bowl win, the Wolverines challenged UW’s award-winning offensive line and blitzed Penix only a few times. Michigan often dropped seven and eight defenders into coverage.
That had the effect of keeping Huskies play caller Ryan Grubb from calling many deep passes on which Penix and UW usually thrive. Penix threw only three through the first three quarters. All were overthrown incomplete.
The rest of Penix’s 18 completions into the fourth quarter were on throws underneath most of that added pass coverage.
Penix finally got a deep-ball connection, with 11 minutes left in the game, to Odunze on a lofted ball down the right sideline. UW appeared to be across midfield. But officials called right tackle Roger Rosengarten for pulling and holding a Michigan pass rusher. The 42-yard swing forced the Huskies to punt, for the fifth time.
Instead of driving with new momentum, the defense had to do it again, still down 20-13.
But on the first play after UW’s punt following the huge holding penalty, Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy threw for 41 yards to tight end Colston Loveland over the middle past three Huskies. A few plays later, Blake Corum ran 12 yards for a touchdown. That gave Michigan 296 yards rushing, and a 27-13 lead with 7 minutes remaining.
It would take the rally of Penix’s amazing Huskies career for UW to win the national championship.
It didn’t happen.
Penix didn’t get his first deep-pass connection of the night with 6 minutes left: 44 yards down the sideline to Odunze to the Michigan 27. Michigan was up by two touchdowns by then.
That was UW’s only play of 20 of more yards on offense all night, on its 59th offensive play.
Washington came into the title game tied for third nationally with 89 plays of 20-plus yards and tied for fourth with 44 plays of 30-plus yards.
By contrast, Michigan came in tied for 112th in the nation with just 19 plays of 30 yards or longer. The Wolverines had six against Washington.
Momentum to UW after slow start
The Huskies had the ball and momentum to start the second half down just 17-10, after Penix’s fourth-down touchdown pass to Jalen McMillan in the final minute of the first half. But Penix, with two Michigan pass rushers in his face, forced a throw to the sideline toward Odunze on the first play after halftime. Michigan cornerback Will Johnson intercepted the ball in UW territory.
The Wolverines converted that into a field goal, and the Huskies trailed by two scores again, 20-10.
On the ensuing drive, Penix threw a screen pass to tight end Devin Culp for 14 yards. A personal foul on Michigan for a borderline late hit made it a 29-yard gain for UW.
That led to Grady Gross’ second field goal of the game, this one from 45 yards. The Huskies were back to where they were before Penix’s interception to begin the second half, down by seven points at 20-13 midway through the third quarter.
Huskies run over early
The Huskies allowed 174 yards rushing on just nine carries, with touchdown dashes of 41 and 46 yards by tailback Donovan Edwards — in the first quarter alone.
The Huskies trailed 14-3, and Michigan had a first down at the UW 21 following Blake Corum’s 59-yard run on the final play of the first quarter.
Michigan’s offense didn’t have a third down until their 16th play, a minute and a half into the second quarter.
“Just missed fits, to be honest with you,” Huskies linebacker Edefuan Ulofoshio said. “They went a couple gap schemes and we had one less guy. They had a really good scheme on the second touchdown, because they went tackle over and the DBs were kind of, like, situated.
“We have to correct it. But at the end of the day, in games like this we can’t make explosive mistakes like that. And ultimately it cost us.”
Jabbar Muhammad’s pivotal play
Then came a sizable stop by the Huskies on third and 4 from the 17. Cornerback Jabbar Muhammad gave Washington its biggest play of the game to that point. He broke up a short pass outside to Michigan’s Cornelius Johnson. That forced the Wolverines to settle for a field goal and a 17-3 lead instead of possibly 21-3.
UW was still in reach of the game early.
Muhammad left the game briefly after making another big play, a run stop of the mighty Corum at the line of scrimmage in the second quarter. He appeared to have a right-shoulder injury as he got helped to the sideline.
He missed just one play. It was, after all, the national championship.
After Muhammad’s pass break-up on fourth down, two false starts on the Huskies’ heralded offensive line created a third and 19. Then on fourth and 7 from the Michigan 47-yard line, Penix faced a four-man rush and had plenty of time to throw. Rome Odunze came wide open alone at the Michigan 20, with no one in front of him to at least inside the 10 if not the goal line.
But Penix’s pass turned the star receiver around. The pass sailed past his stretched arms incomplete. Instead of a 17-10 game, Michigan took over on downs at midfield still leading 17-3 with 10:27 left in the half.
“It’s on me,” Penix said. “I just gotta make the throw. That’s it.”
Michigan’s coaches help UW
Yet the Wolverines’ offensive coaches kept calling passes.
Two of their three plays on a three and out were incomplete throws. After a sack ruined UW’s next possession, Michigan went for it on fourth and 2 from the Washington 38. With over 200 yards rushing at that point, Michigan threw again. Ulofoshio broke up McCarthy’s short pass to get Washington off the field again.
On a third chance, Penix and the Huskies’ offense got back in the game.
Penix completed his first three passes on the ensuing drive to get Washington to the Michigan 23. On third and 10, wide receiver Jalen McMillan made a savvy play, slowing his out route causing cornerback Mike Sainristil to run into his back as Penix’s throw arrived. The pass-interference penalty gave UW a first and goal.
On fourth down from the 3, Penix looked to his right, saw his receiver getting held, then made a nearly no-look pass late over the middle to his left to McMillan breaking open left to right. The dart throw stuck in McMillan’s chest for a touchdown in the final minute of the first half.
UW’s fans in that end zone roared. “LETS! GO! HUSKIES!” chants rang through the packed, cavernous stadium. Washington was within 17-10 going into halftime.
And the Huskies received the second-half kickoff.
It was the two-for-one opportunity at the end of the first half and beginning of the second that teams who win the opening coin toss use to swing games.
Dillon Johnson limited
Washington’s running game was almost non-existent, 46 total yards rushing, second-fewest this season to 13 versus Arizona State in UW’s escape win in October at Husky Stadium.
The issue Monday night: Lead back Johnson couldn’t run effectively on his injured left ankle.
Johnson had been carted out of Washington’s national-semifinal win over Texas in the Sugar Bowl seven days earlier. But he started Monday night. After one run, on UW’s first offensive play, he limped off but never regained his speed, power or place in the offense.
He finished with 33 yards on 11 carries. Backup Will Nixon played most of the second half instead of Johnson at running back.
Kalen DeBoer thankful, ‘sorry’
In the end, DeBoer praised Penix and Ulofoshio in particular for their leadership and their sacrifice these last two years to make Washington a national power again.
“I’m sorry,” the coach who’s brought UW back quickly.
“I’m sorry that they couldn’t realize a championship this year.”
Penix had one parting shot for the Huskies’ many doubters across the country this season. This perfect team entering Monday was an underdog in four of its five games to get to this title game. It just finished as one of only 19 major college football teams with 14 wins in a season.
“This,” Penix said, “is the only time y’all were right.”
This story was originally published January 8, 2024 at 8:22 PM.
