UW Cranks Up High-Powered Offense Again in 52-6 Victory
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The Portland State football team had trouble catching its breath. One reason might have been the wildfire smoke blanketing Seattle, leaving a thick haze over the city and Husky Stadium just half full. Clearly, a health hazard.
A bigger factor was the University of Washington's high-powered offense that scored on its first four possessions in Saturday's opening half, dared the visiting Vikings to try and keep up and had them gasping from a 52-6 defeat. This was solely a football problem.
Pass the oxygen bottles, please.
While the air quality wasn't any good, the UW aerial and ground attack was superb. It ran up 617 yards of total offense, giving it 1,142 in two showings.
The week before, the Huskies found the end zone on their first six possessions and seven of 10 series in downing Kent State 45-20. For this game, it was points showing up on eight of 11 series.
"What I like right now is they come off the sideline and there's an expectation to do it again and it's backed up by focus and effort and the desire to be great," UW coach Kalen DeBoer said. "It's real cool to see."
This time, the Huskies did it without top receiver Rome Odunze, who was in uniform but didn't play for an undisclosed injury reason, and All-Pac-12 offensive tackle Jaxson Kirkland, whose UW season debut was inexplicably delayed even more. Maybe the Huskies held them out to try and make things more fair.
Only the names on the back of the opposing jerseys were different from the opener as the UW smothered these Big Sky defenders with drives of 77, 74, 99 and 72 yards to get started, with four different players finding the end zone.
Michael Penix Jr. had another do-what-whatever-I-want-to-do performance, completing 20 of 27 passes for 337 yards and a pair of touchdowns. That's 46 of 66 for 682 yards and 6 TDs passing in two weeks.
"That's the reason I came here — I knew what we'd be able to do when I got here," Penix said. "First of all, it's an amazing coaching staff because I knew what those guys would do to get us in position to have those big games and a lot of yards and stuff like that."
Just six-plus minutes into the game, backup running back Cam Davis picked his way through the line and scored from 8 yards out, for the first of two TDs for him on this day.
Less than three minutes later, Penix, facing heavy pressure coming up the middle, dumped off a 12-yard pass to a crossing Ja'Lynn Polk, who dove and stretched the ball over the goal line for a 14-0 lead.
The third Husky touchdown, coming in the second quarter, was historic — for just the fourth time in school annals, the UW turned in a 99-yard scoring drive.
Penix found a wide-open Jalen McMillan well behind behind the Portland State secondary and hit him stride with an 84-yard strike, in particular beating defensive back Duhron Goodman. It was McMillan's third touchdown catch in two Saturdays.
"Coach [Ryan] Grubb and coach are being honest about being perfect and doing our roles and our jobs," McMillan said. "I'm not surprised at all. I've put in so much work to where I expect this of myself and I expect even more. As the season goes, I expect to do this every game."
Wayne Taulapapa scores on a 6-yard run for the Huskies.
Stephen Brashear/USA TODAY Sports
On drive No. 4, following a Vikings field goal, Penix put the Huskies in position to score again by zipping a 37-yard dart through two defenders to McMillan, setting up the UW at the 6. A play later, starting running back Wayne Taulapapa used a pancake block by redshirt freshman tackle Roger Rosengarten to cover those final 6 yards and dive into the end zone.
The Huskies made it five scores in six first-half drives with a 32-yard Peyton Henry as time ran out and led 31-3.
After the break, the UW stayed relentless in moving the ball up the field. The Huskies scored on their first two possessions, going 80 yards for Will Nixon's 4-yard TD run and 67 yards for Davis' repeat trip over the goal line, this time from 3 yards out. That made the score 45-6 and there was still a lot of time left to play.
McMillan and Giles Jackson piled up 127 and 105 receiving yards, respectively, giving the Huskies their first pair of pass-catchers to crack three digits in a game since John Ross and Dante Pettis did in 2016.
Taulapapa led all rushers with 94 yards on 12 carries, while Davis backed him with 74 on 10 tries.
DeBoer turned the offense over to the backups for the fourth quarter, a group that included junior running back Richard Newton finally coming off a knee injury and making his season debut. He got into the flow of things by snapping off 16- and 21-yard runs. He finished with 59 yards on 10 carries.
Reserve quarterbacks Dylan Morris and Sam Huard both took turns in running the offense in the final quarter.
True freshman wideout Denzel Boston closed out the scoring late in the game when he took a Huard handoff and scored on a 2-yard run.
While these two outings have served as a nice movie trailer for DeBoer and his staff, the new offense will get the feature film next Saturday when it gets sorely tested when Michigan State comes to Husky Stadium for a showcase non-conference game.
"I like where our locker room is at," the coach said.
It's no more MAC or Big Sky defenses, tripping over themselves and coming in second over and over again to this new spread offense. It'll be straight-up hard-nosed football against the Big Ten. Possibly the smoke will go away and the fans will show up.
Maybe, just maybe, the Huskies' offense will keep churning out yards and points and make this quality team nervous.
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