Penix Shakes Off Week-Long Illness to Make Huskies Feel Better
PALO ALTO, California — After the quarterback and his University of Washington football team beat Stanford 42-33 on Saturday night, Michael Penix Jr. sat down in a small room full of media guys and coughed a couple of times. He sounded nasally and stuffed up. He admitted to losing his voice during the week.
Yet when you're the offensive leader of the nation's fifth-ranked and unbeaten Huskies (8-0 overall, 5-0 Pac-12), you might get a few practice plays off, but you don't dare sit out any game-day snaps.
The rest of us would have watched that game in bed, but Penix had to soldier through another tough football encounter, this time feeling significantly less than optimum. As is the custom with UW injuries or illness, details are hard to pry out. Flu? Head cold?
"We found a way to get through it," he said. "I started feeling a lot better as the game started going on. We found a way to get the win."
In what was considered an off night for him at times, Penix still completed 21 of 38 passes for 369 yards and 4 touchdowns, including a 92-yarder to Ja'Lynn Polk that was the second-longest in school history.
Acknowledging as much, he wasn't very accurate early on, missing on four of his first six throws. Near the end of the first half, he threw three incompletions in a row on one series backed up against the goal line, which was a rarity for him.
"I was battling through some things, as well, early on," Penix said. "I have to do better, be able to convert on some of those throws. I was under-throwing a lot of stuff. No excuse."
Michael Penix Jr. reacts after throwing one of his 4 touchdown passes at Stanford.
D. Cameron Ross/USA TODAY Sports
So it was the same story for a second consecutive week for Penix and the Huskies, that of winning but not putting away a lesser opponent as the fans and odds-makers believe should happen. Yet they don't have to read the fan message boards to get a critique of what's expected of them. They have their own.
"Even if we was winning by 30, if we're not playing to the standard that we feel is set in our room and in our locker room, we know we have to do better each and every game," he said. "We try to continue to take those steps to do better.
"Even when we were putting up 50 points, and winning by 30 and 40 points, we're never satisfied."
With that, Penix headed for the visitors' locker room, looking drained and weary and put through an extra physical battle.
He has seven days to get rid of what's ailing him before returning to the state of California to face 24th-ranked USC (7-2, 5-1), similarly a pushed-to-the-limits 50-49 winner over the Cal Bears, in Los Angeles. There are no real days off for him.
"I've been working through stuff all week," Penix said before exiting. "I'm good though. Nothing was going to stop us from winning."
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