Inside The Huskies

Penix Was Dressed for Success, But LSU's Daniels Went Home with the Heisman

The UW quarterback just misses out on college football's biggest individual prize.

Dan Raley

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Michael Penix Jr. showed up in a three-piece velvety purple suit, no less, with the names of each of his University of Washington football teammates and coaches stitched on the inside lining of his coat, a classy gesture on his part as this dedicated team guy.

On Saturday night in New York, it was no contest for the Husky quarterback as the best-dressed and most stylish Heisman Trophy candidate among the four finalists, with the left-hander providing an impeccable fashion statement. 

However in the end, the threads would not lead to the coveted hardware.

While Penix no doubt took the outcome in stride, a UW fan base on the edge of its seat likely let out a collective groan that could be heard from Seattle to Times Square when dual-threat LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels was revealed as the 89th Heisman Trophy winner on ESPN-TV — and the Huskies were denied their first recipient of college football's most cherished individual award and that famous stiff-arming figurine.

In a close balloting, Daniels won with 503 first-place votes and 2,209 points while Penix was second with 292 votes and 1,701 points.

Yet Penix's football story does not end with a New York award ceremony. He now turns his attention back to a Sugar Bowl meeting against Texas in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff and to possibly winning a bigger prize — a national championship.

With or without the Heisman, he does this as one of the greatest UW players ever, with his name etched at the very top with Hugh McElhenny, George Wilson, Bob Schloredt, Steve Emtman, Warren Moon, Sonny Sixkiller and so many others.

Penix surpassed Emtman, the 1991 consensus All-America defensive tackle, as the UW's previous highest Heisman finisher — the dominant defender finished fourth during the Huskies' national championship season, which included a 34-14 Rose Bowl beating of Michigan and the Heisman winner that year, Wolverines wide receiver and now ESPN analyst Desmond Howard.

A serious Heisman candidacy still was something to be count as a huge accomplishment, especially considering the quarterback's long-winding journey. 

After suffering four season-ending injuries at Indiana that proved almost too much to bear, Penix considered walking away from college football. Giving in to multiple instances of torn knee ligaments, a broken collarbone and a damaged shoulder, to four years of pulsating pain.

All of the the nonstop mishaps, surgeries and rehabilitations easily could have overwhelmed him and sent the left-handed quarterback home to Florida, a beaten man.

Instead, Penix switched schools to the UW, changed his luck on the football field, was accepted by a city if not an entire Northwest region and for the past two years has dominated a game that once mistreated him.

Penix wasn't the first-team All-Pac-12 quarterback this season or that conference's Offensive Player of the Year, giving way to Oregon quarterback and fellow Heisman candidate Bo Nix for each accolade, or the Associated Press Player of the Year, which went to Daniels, on top of the Heisman, but he didn't leave New York empty-handed.

After arriving in the city during the week and making the rounds of Times Square with the other finalists, Penix warmed up to the idea of winning the Heisman on Friday night by receiving the Maxwell Award, likewise given to the nation's most outstanding player. He also was selected as the first-team quarterback on the Walter Camp All-America team. 

Following all of that Big Ten injury misfortune, Penix's college career neatly came together in Montlake when he reunited with Husky coach Kalen DeBoer, who was his offensive coordinator at Indiana for the 2019 season and hired by the UW for 2022. It was college football networking at its very best, a match made for a lot of yards, points and victories.

Together, Penix became the trigger man for DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb's high-powered UW offense, which is a big reason the Huskies are a historic 13-0 for the first time in school annals, a College Football Playoff qualifier bound for the second time and holding up a national-best, 20-game winning streak.

DeBoer and Grubb arrived in the New York on Saturday afternoon after recruiting in California and were among the large contingent of UW personnel and the quarterback's family members who joined Penix for the Heisman ceremony.

For the second consecutive year, Penix leads the NCAA in passing yards. He averaged 357 per game in 2022, 324 this past season, plus he's accumulated a 4,218 passing yardage total this fall that ranks No. 1 and is still growing.

With his rejuvenated play and uninterrupted success in Seattle, the quarterback could end up as a first-round NFL draft pick after generating career passing stats so far of 13,056 yards and 93 touchdowns in the Pac-12 and Big Ten combined.

He left Indiana after enjoying moments of brilliance — for instance, he had a 491-yard, 5-TD passing effort at Ohio State in the famed Horseshoe — but too often he'll be remembered in the Midwest for lying prone on the football field in great pain or gingerly walking off the playing surface with shredded ligaments or broken bones. 

At Washington, however, Penix has been a picture of good health and will forever be recalled as a dashing figure at Husky Stadium on game day. He holds a 24-2 record over his two UW seasons as the starting quarterback, 36-7 counting his time at Indiana. 

No, he didn't win the Heisman. Yet Penix has become a Husky fan favorite for program eternity, he might yet turn up as a member of a national championship team and seemingly, hopefully, no one can physically hurt this guy anymore.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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