Prolific Penix Begins Rewriting Husky Record Book
Three of his first four plays against Arizona were handoffs to running back Wayne Taulapapa, not exactly an indicator that a record-breaking passing effort was coming.
His first throw went for 7 yards, again hardly reason to believe the University of Washington football record book would be under assault.
Yet Michael Penix Jr. was just getting warmed up, soon to be on his way to a 516-yard passing outing in the Huskies' 49-39 victory over the visiting Wildcats on Saturday.
At the end of three quarters at Husky Stadium, a UW athletic department publicist gave an update to those in the press box that Cody Pickett's single-game record of 455 yards against Arizona in 2001 was about to fall.
In fact, on the very next play after that disclosure, Penix, the Indiana transfer, rifled a 27-yard gainer to Taulapapa and the 21-year-old Husky record was now his. The quarterback cited focus for making things happen.
"We just go out there and try to score each and every drive," Penix said. "We don't worry about the scoreboard. We don't worry about anything outside of what we've got to do that play to make sure we're great and dominate that play. If there has to be a shootout, it'll be a shootout."
The Husky quarterback also set a school record for total offense in a game, with his 529 yards surpassing Marques Tuiasosopo's 509 from 1999 when the latter became the first NCAA player to pass for 300 and run for 200 against Stanford, picking up 302 and 207 yards, respectively.
Penix, whose previous UW best was 397 passing yards against Michigan State and whose Indiana best was 491 against Ohio State in 2020, completed 36 of 44 passes against Arizona, with four going for touchdowns and none intercepted. Three of his misses were receiver drops.
For those wondering about the NCAA record for passing yards in a game, it belongs to Washington State's Connor Halliday and Texas Tech's Patrick Mahomes, who each threw for 734 yards in an outing in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
Pickett, who previously held three of the UW's top four passing yardage totals with 429, 438 and 455 yards, weighed in immediately after the game with a congratulatory tweet, presumably from his home in Idaho.
Former UW quarterback Keith Price, who shared the second-best total of 438 with Pickett, saw Penix's heroics in person. He was invited to the game and presented to the crowd as the Husky legend that day.
Penix ranks as the nation's No. 1 passer in season yardage with 2,560, 48 more than Georgia Southern's Kyle Vantrease. He's also tops in average passing yards per game with 365.72, again topping Vantrease, who's at 358.86.
With 20 touchdown passes, the Husky quarterback is fifth nationally behind Ohio State's C.J. Stroud and North Carolina's Drake Maye (both with 24), Mississippi State's Will Rogers (23) and Western Kentucky's Austin Reed (21).
Penix has a ways to go to threaten the UW record for touchdown passes in a season, 43, which was established by Jake Browning in 2018. With 20, Penix is tied with Chris Chandler, who finished with that total in 1986.
An oft-injured player who's appeared in seven games for the first time in his five-year college career, Penix just goes about his business on the football field and has five more UW regular-season games to add substantially to his individual passing totals.
More Husky records easily could fall. The confident and accurate quarterback has just the right attitude to make a lot of good things happen.
"I don't really worry about bad plays," Penix said. "Bad plays are going to happen. It's football. We're playing Division I football. We're playing a lot of great teams. We've just got to make sure we stay locked in."
He's got 516 examples to show that he is.
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