Down-to-the-Wire Sugar Bowl Finish Highlights Washington’s Resilience

The undefeated Huskies have had plenty of close calls ahead of a championship matchup with Michigan.

NEW ORLEANS — It wouldn’t be a Washington Huskies game if it didn’t go down to the wire. But even for a team accustomed to stressful finishes, this was an extreme case.

Here were the Texas Longhorns, all but dead and buried, suddenly back alive and within range of scoring the winning touchdown in the Sugar Bowl. They were on the Huskies’ 13-yard-line, down six points, with a chance to absolutely steal a College Football Playoff semifinal game at the very end.

Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers threw the ball into the end zone once ... twice ... three times. All three passes fell to the ground incomplete. Washington held on for a 37-31 victory and will now play Michigan for the national championship next week, the last two undefeated teams in the country contesting the last game of the season.

For Washington, this was a tenth straight victory by 10 points or less. It was a fifth straight one-score game. It was a testament to the Huskies’ collective skill and will, but also a vivid example of how a seemingly sure thing isn’t really a sure thing until it’s over.

When Washington kicked a field goal to take a 37-28 lead with 2 minutes and 40 seconds left, this looked like a lock. When the Huskies held Texas to a field goal on the subsequent possession and then recovered an onside kick, this looked like a lock. But then things got weird.

Taking over with 1:06 remaining, Washington handed off to Dillon Johnson on three straight plays. Texas called its final timeouts after first and second down. Washington had a chance to run the clock under 20 seconds remaining in the game on third down—but Johnson aggravated an unspecified injury that had been bothering him in recent weeks, stopping the clock.

So the Huskies punted with just less than a minute on the clock, then interfered with the Texas returner’s fair catch. Suddenly, the Horns had 69 yards to go with 45 seconds left, making the mission less impossible than it had appeared.

Lo and behold, Ewers lobbed a 41-yard bomb to Jordan Whittington, then fired a 16-yard strike to Jaydon Blue. A game Texas never led was improbably within reach.

“Thought we'd end up with just maybe 10-15 seconds to have to work with and then go the whole length of the field,” Washington coach Kalen DeBoer said. "But the defense had to stay out there and play every down until the very end. So proud of the resiliency and finding another way to win a football game.”

On the sideline, Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. looked on with belief, then relief. This team had found so many ways to win the close ones that it couldn’t conceive of letting the biggest game yet get away.

“Coach DeBoer always says we’re built for this moment and we believed it,” Penix said. “We were all believing on the sideline.”

Underdogs for a second straight game and the third time in the last four, the Huskies dominated this game for roughly 59 minutes. Penix gave Heisman Trophy selectors a case of voter’s remorse, lighting up a very good Texas defense for 430 passing yards.

The Heisman runner-up to LSU’s Jayden Daniels completed 22 of his first 24 passes, including 11 straight to start the second half. He dropped bombs early (a 77-yarder to Ja’Lynn Polk on the first possession), middle (a 52-yard shot to Rome Odunze and 29-yarders to Germie Bernard and Polk) and late (a 32-yard dime to Odunze). This was one of the best quarterback performances in College Football Playoff history, probably ranking behind only Joe Burrow’s detonation of Oklahoma in 2019, Trevor Lawrence’s demolition of Alabama in ’18, and Stetson Bennett’s games against Michigan in 2021 and TCU in ’22.

“He set the tone pretty quickly,” DeBoer said of Penix. “He made all the throws. I thought he just was just so good with his feet in the pocket and resetting and making throws, things that we know he's capable of doing. And with a good defense like we were facing in Texas today, he had to kind of resort to all the tools that he has and all the skill sets that make him special and make him, in my mind, the best player in college football.

“This guy all month was on another level making sure this (victory) happened.”

Washington quarterback Penix (right) celebrates with teammates after winning the Sugar Bowl :: Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports

Penix not only has the best receiving corps in the nation to throw to, he operates behind an offensive line that won the Joe Moore Award as the best unit in the nation. Texas’ defensive line barely repressed its belief that it would dominate the matchup with the Huskies up front, but in the end Washington won that battle as well. The Longhorns recorded no sacks and had just three tackles for loss.

Washington now has the opportunity to bring down the curtain on the Pac-12 in grand fashion. The Huskies helped deal a death blow to the conference by bolting to the Big Ten starting next season, but their last football game as a member of the Pac-12 could deliver the league’s first national title since 2004.

After beating Oregon State on the road as a one-point underdog, then Oregon in the Pac-12 title game as a 9 1/2-point ‘dog, the Huskies have now dispatched Texas as four-point underdog. They won’t be favored against Michigan, either. That’s fine with them.

“I've said it since around fall camp, that our goal was to win the national championship,” Penix said. “And some people probably didn't believe us. But we have the opportunity to do that. So we're not going to get distracted and forget about that goal. “

Obviously, this was a step towards it. And it's given us the opportunity to be able to play in that game. But we're still motivated. We still got more things we want to accomplish. The natty is right here in front of us.”