Inside The Huskies

While Public Opinion Changes Weekly, Penix Remains in Thick of Heisman Race

The Husky quarterback remains a top contender for the college game's big prize.

Dan Raley

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Luckily, 870 voters plucked from six regions will determine the next Heisman Trophy winner, or college football's best player, which seems fair enough. Yet for now, all you will get is breathless speculation based on individual whim, almost silly stuff.

USC's Caleb Williams was deemed the early favorite over the first month of the season solely because the quarterback went home clutching the 2022 award, but consecutive Trojan losses since have dropped him almost entirely from the conversation.

University of Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. next was hailed as the Heisman leader largely for entertaining the masses in heroic fashion after coming out on top of a nationally televised duel with Oregon's Bo Nix, another trophy contender.

Yet Penix was shoved aside by some this week after failing to throw a touchdown pass for the second time in three games, though his football team beat Arizona State and remains unbeaten at 7-0.

More college analysts than not have jumped on the bandwagon promoting Michigan's J.J. McCarthy, who quarterbacks an 8-0 team yet didn't become a trophy frontrunner until the Wolverines were roundly accused of a brazen sign-stealing operation to gain a competitive advantage.

Nothing says Heisman Trophy winner more than an alleged cheating scandal used to navigate the highly competitive Big Ten football race. 

All of this means the Huskies' Penix remains firmly in the mix for this high-level prize in spite of the harder-than-expected 15-7 victory over Arizona State, the Pac-12's last-place team.

The left-hander threw a pair of interceptions while completing 27 of 42 passes for a season-low 275 yards and the UW failed to score an offensive touchdown for the first time in the Kalen DeBoer era. Penix even got roughed up a little when ASU edge rusher Clayton Smith came crashing through and hit him helmet to helmet, drew some blood and got ejected.

"It's just a busted lip, that ain't nothing," Penix said flippantly after the game. 

While Penix remains very much in the running for college football's biggest individual prize, leave it to DeBoer to put everything in perspective for his high-level quarterback who's not necessarily a publicity seeker.

"The reason he came back was not about winning an award," DeBoer said. "He came back to play because he wanted to do something special for this football program and win a championship for this football team — that is 100 percent his focus."

As it stands, Penix holds seven-game passing totals of 182 completions in 257 attempts for 2,576 yards and 20 touchdowns, with 5 interceptions.

Michigan's McCarthy, for that matter, has compiled eight-game stats of hitting on 132 of 169 passes for 1,794 yards and 18 scores, with 3 pass thefts.

Where they cross over is here: Penix ranks No. 1 nationally with his 2,576 passing yards and passing yards per game of 368.00 while McCarthy in those two categories stands 33rd with his 1,799 yards and 48th with 244.88 an outing.

However, the Michigan player has a stat advantage in completion percentage, where he ranks second nationally at .781 compared to Penix at No. 11 with .708, and McCarthy sits second in passing efficiency at 199.12 to Penix's No. 5 standing in 176.80.

As this Heisman Trophy race plays out, the always opionated Joel Klatt has taken it upon himself to remind everyone that it's a numbers game. 

Klatt, a broadcaster, podcaster and a former Colorado Buffaloes quarterback, gives Penix the Heisman advantage should both Washington and Michigan go unbeaten to the end of the regular season, which is when the award is decided.

"Michael Penix still has the ability to go undefeated with Washington," Klatt said on his podcast this week. "If they do that, remember how they're built, his numbers are going to be through the roof. He will be impossible to catch from a numbers perspective."

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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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