Fox's Klatt Ranks UW Higher Than Initial Coaches Poll

The Huskies didn't make the top 10 in USA Today’s annual preseason list announced on Monday.

The Washington football team — at least in the eyes of the nation's coaches — won't start the 2023 season where it finished in Kalen DeBoer’s first season on the job.

On Monday, the annual preseason coaches poll was announced and ranked the UW No. 11, three spots lower than the team finished in 2022 after defeating No. 20 Texas 27-20 in the Valero Alamo Bowl.

The Huskies enter the coming season as the second-highest ranked team in the Pac-12 Conference behind the No. 6 USC Trojans. Three other schools, No. 14 Utah, No. 15 Oregon and No. 18 Oregon State, made the initial preseason top 25. 

That left the Pac-12 tied with the Big Ten for the second-highest number of schools in the initial rankings behind the SEC, which has six.

None of UW’s non-conference opponents made the top 25, with Boise State the only one of the three — Tulsa and Michigan State are the other two — to receive votes after finishing last season 10-4. 

On today’s ⁦@joelklatt⁩ podcast 👀 pic.twitter.com/JV64jxmrg3

— Tony Castricone (@Castricone) August 7, 2023

FS1 college football analyst Joel Klatt sees UW in a much different light heading into the season.

“At No. 6, this is a team that I really like — rI eally like Washington,” he said on "The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast."

“Washington is sneaky good. I think Washington could win the Pac-12. I think that Michael Penix, their quarterback, could win the Heisman. That’s my darkhorse right there. If I’m talking about Heismans, that’s where I would start with anybody not named Caleb Williams. It would be Michael Penix.”

Penix came in at No. 7 on a list of potential Heisman candidates by NFL.com this past weekend behind five other quarterback, who included Williams.

Unlike last August, when the southpaw was dealing with a three-player competition for the UW starting quarterback job, Penix now has name cache coast to coast. 

With another victory in Big Ten territory at Michigan State in mid-September, his popularity coupled with UW’s ranking with only continue to climb.  

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