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Indiana's Penix Will Join Husky Quarterback Competition

The Florida native started 17 games for the Hoosiers, but suffered four season-ending injuries.
Dan Raley|
Indiana's Penix Will Join Husky Quarterback Competition
Indiana's Penix Will Join Husky Quarterback Competition

The turnstile keeps spinning wildly to the University of Washington football program.

On Monday, tight end Mark Redman and wide receiver Sawyer Racanelli went out the exit, headed for the transfer portal.

They practically passed Michael Penix Jr. coming in, a former Indiana quarterback who will rejoin Kalen Deboer, his former Hoosiers offensive coordinator and now the Husky head coach.

Penix, a 17-game starter, disclosed on Tuesday on social media that he will continue his often dazzling college football career in Seattle, joining a Husky quarterback room that already holds sophomore Dylan Morris, a 15-game starter, and redshirt freshman and fellow left-hander Sam Huard, who started the Apple Cup. 

Now the UW has to find a way to keep the newcomer healthy.

The 6-foot-3, 218-pound Penix from Tampa, Florida, did wondrous things for Indiana but suffered season-ending injuries in each of his four seasons — a pair of torn-up knees and a pair of shoulder mishaps.

In 2018, he became the first freshman quarterback, redshirt or true, to start for Indiana since Antwaan Randle El took snaps 20 years earlier. He lasted three games before tearing his ACL against Penn State.

Playing for DeBoer in 2019, Penix completed a school-record 20 consecutive passes and completed 110 of 160 passes for 1,394 yards and 10 touchdowns in six games before going down with a separated shoulder against Northwestern.

In his best season at Indiana in 2020, he played six games and led the Hoosiers to a 36-35 overtime victory over No. 8 Penn State, converting a pair of conversion passes to make it happen. He also threw for 491 yards and 5 TDs in a 42-35 loss at Ohio State. He played in 6 of 8 games for the 6-2 Hoosiers before tearing an ACL against Maryland.

This season, Indiana were ranked in the preseason but nosedived to a bitterly disappointing 2-10 record after Penix went down in the fifth game against Penn State, with the Hoosiers standing at 2-3 when he was done.

Penix, who is 12-5 as a starter, has career passing totals of 342 completions in 576 attempts for 4,197 yards and 29 scores, with 15 interceptions. He had five 300-yard passing games. He was an Indiana team captain in 2020 and this past season.

He has two seasons of college eligibility remaining.

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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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