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Inside The Huskies

Once 2022 Season Ended, Penix Made Sure His Line Was Well Fed

The quarterback treated his Husky protectors to an expensive meal.
Dan Raley|
Once 2022 Season Ended, Penix Made Sure His Line Was Well Fed
Once 2022 Season Ended, Penix Made Sure His Line Was Well Fed

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Washington Huskies

Once the University of Washington football team put a capper on its upbeat 11-2 season, Husky quarterback Michael Penix Jr. pulled a pro move.

No, he didn't declare for the NFL draft, go shopping for an agent or begin interviewing with front-office execs. 

Penix generously took his starting offensive linemen out to dinner and picked up the check, showing his appreciation for being so well protected over those 13 football games, where he was sacked just five times and remained healthy for a full year for the first time in his five college seasons.

This was actually a little more dangerous venture than standing in the pocket and risking a blindside hit. 

NIL money or no NIL money, he took five hungry, 300-pound men out for a meal at the high-priced steakhouse El Gaucho in downtown Seattle.

"I ordered some steak," 6-foot-4, 312-pound junior offensive tackle Troy Fautanu said. "I ordered some fish. A whole bunch of bread balls. Those were sooooo good."

Fautanu wasn't even the biggest eater that night, letting fellow tackle Roger Rosengarten claim those honors.

"Roger's a tank, I'm not going to lie," Fautanu said. "He eats a lot of food. I think I was a close second."

While the final bill wasn't revealed publicly, most steak dinners fall in the $74 to $89 range at this busy Seattle establishment, which means the check had to be pushing $1,000 for a party of six. Yet Penix didn't blink.

"We were ordering whatever we wanted to eat and he was cool with it," Fautanu said.

The quarterback from Florida, said to be receiving a fairly healthy NIL stipend these days, which is a big reason he came back for another Husky season, was good with it all.

"I let them eat," he said with a smile, always acutely aware of his football surroundings.

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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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