Inside The Huskies

Penix One of 11 Quarterbacks in Running for Maxwell Award

The Husky standout makes it to the semifinal round.
Dan Raley|
Penix One of 11 Quarterbacks in Running for Maxwell Award
Penix One of 11 Quarterbacks in Running for Maxwell Award

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Washington Huskies

The Heisman Trophy is college football's ultimate individual bauble, but not that far behind it is the Maxwell Award, another reward that signifies the game's most outstanding player.

This week, University of Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. was named as a semifinalist for the Maxwell as one of 17 players still in contention — 11 of whom are quarterbacks.

In two weeks, the Philadelphia-based Maxwell Football Club pares its list of candidates to three and the winner will be announced on Dec. 8 on the ESPN awards show.

Penix, of course, has as much of a chance of anyone in becoming the Maxwell recipient, succeeding USC quarterback Caleb Williams, who won both the Heisman and Maxwell in 2022.

Besides quartarbacking the fifth-ranked team in the CFP and AP polls, Penix leads the nation in passing yards with 3,533 on 249 of 366 passes for 28 touchdowns, with seven interceptions.

The Huskies have never had a Heisman or a Maxwell winner. These awards were created in 1936 and 1937, respectively. 

Besides Penix and Williams, other quarterbacks in the running are Alabama's Jalen Milroe, Florida State's Jordan Travis, Georgia Carson Beck, Liberty's Kaidon Salter, LSU's Jayden Daniels, Michigan's J.J. McCarthy, North Carolina's Drake May, Oklahoma's Dillon Gabriel and Oregon's Bo Nix.

Rounding out the Maxwell semifinalists are wide receivers Marvin Harrison Jr. of Ohio State, Luther Burden III of Missiouri and Malik Nabers of LSU, running backs Blake Corum of Michigan and Oklahoma State's Ollie Gordon, and  tight end Brock Bowers of Georgia.

 

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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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