Cal Sports Report

Pac-12 Improves to 3-1 in Bowls With Washington's Victory

Huskies' win over Texas in Alamo Bowl gives Washington seven straight wins to end the season

Jake Curtis

The Pac-12 improved its postseason record to 3-1 with Washington's 27-20 victory over Texas in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, Texas.

This win was signficianct for the conference because Washington (11-2) came into the game as a three-point underdog even though the Huskies were ranked 12th and the Longhorns were No. 20.

Only the Big Ten, which is 2-0, has a better postseason winning percentage than the Pac-12 so far this season. Three more Pac-12 teams have bowl games to play.

A list of bowl records by conference appears at the end of this story.

The Huskies finished the season with seven straight wins, and they beat their former head coach, Steve Sarkisian, who is now the head coach of Texas (8-5).

Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. threw the ball 54 times, completing 32, for 287 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. He finished the season with 4,641 yards passing to break the 20-year-old Washington season mark of 4,458 set by Cody Pickett.

And Penix will return for the 2023 season.

Texas was without All-America running back Bijon Robinson, who rushed for 1,580 yards and 18 TDs, but opted out of the bowl game to prepare for the NFL draft.

Without him, the Longhorns were limited to 51 yards rushing and 2.8 yards per rushing attempt.

The Huskies took a 27-10 lead two minutes into the fourth quarter on Penix's second touchdopwn pass, an 8-yard completion to Jalen McMillan.

However, the Longhorns scored 10 straight points to give themselves a chance.

Texas regained the ball at its own 16-yard line with 25 seconds left, and after two Quinn Ewers incopmpletions and a sack, Ewers completed a 49-yard pass to Casey Cain on the game' final play.

Conference records in this season's bowl games (with the number of teams in bowl games in parentheses). Conferences are listed in order of winning percentage:

Big Ten: 2-0 (9) -- 1.000

Pac-12: 3-1 (7) -- .750

ACC: 4-2 (9) -- .667

MAC: 3-2 (6) -- .600

American: 3-3 (7) -- .500

Conference-USA: 3-3 (6) -- .500

Mountain West: 3-3 (7) -- .500

Independents: 2-2 (5) -- .500

Sun Belt: 3-4 (7) -- .429

SEC: 1-3 (11) -- .250

Big 12: 1-5 (8) -- .167

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Cover photo of Alamo Bowl MVP Michael Penix Jr. is by Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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