With Apples and Cougars on His Mind, Penix Might Not Even Notice Pullman
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Considering he traveled more than 3,000 miles from his Tampa, Florida, hometown, to play quarterback for the University of Washington, this after spending four years in Bloomington, Indiana, Michael Penix Jr. just isn't overly impressed by geographical oddities.
Not the least of which is Pullman, Washington, the faraway home of the Washington State Cougars — one of the hardest places in college football to reach in any reasonable or speedy fashion.
For the most direct route, you either squeeze onto a prop plane and ride through mountain turbulence or brave the five-hour drive over a snow-covered pass and through the two-lane, wide-open spaces of Eastern Washington.
This worldly 6-foot-3, 213-pound lefty doesn't plan on doing any sightseeing, outside of looking at yardage markers to check the down and distance at Martin Stadium.
No, Penix won't be be taking any rafting trips down the Snake River, close-up photos of Palouse Falls or gaze out at the wheat fields.
He might not even notice that the Huskies (9-2 overall, 6-2 Pac-12) will be spending the night before Saturday night's kickoff out of state, bunking in a hotel across the border and down the big hill in Lewiston, Idaho.
"I don't really care about Pullman," Penix said this week while preparing for his first and likely only Apple Cup game. "We just want to go win, that's all I want to see. I want to see us walk out of there singing the fight song and with the Apple Cup in our hand. That's what I want to see."
Against the Cougars (7-4, 4-4), Penix will continue on his remarkable path as the nation's leading passer, having piled up 3,869 yards, which are 30 more than his nearest pursuer, Western Kentucky's Austin Reed, and at least 250 more than everybody else.
The UW school record for passing yards in a season is 4,458 yards by Cody Pickett over 13 games in 2002, when the Rick Neuheisel-coached Huskies finished 7-6.
Expected to draw the same number of outings, Penix would need to average 295 yards in the Apple Cup and a guaranteed bowl game to surpass that 20-year-old UW standard, which is doable.
He actually averages a national-best 351.73 passing yards per game, which is 23.18 better than his nearest pursuer, North Carolina's Drake Maye, so Pickett's Husky record is well within breaking.
Penix, however, won't have that individual discussion just yet, this week preferring to speak only about team objectives against WSU and his overall familiarity with playing in a state rivalry.
"I've been part of an instate rivalry, as well," he said, referring to Indiana-Purdue games while quarterbacking in the Big Ten. "We're playing for more than ourselves. We're playing for this university, each other, obviously the Apple Cup. We want to make sure we go out and just put on our best performance."
He's heard about the Cougars emerging with their most decisive victory of the 113-game series by winning 40-13 a year ago at Husky Stadium, all about the flag-planting at midfield and an overdone celebration, all of which left his teammates a little irked.
"Obviously, it was some disrespect there," Penix said. "However my brothers feel, I'm going to feel the same, because I'm behind them. I'm a Dawg now. ... We know what we've got to do this week — to make sure throughout they won't have that feeling again."
But first, someone give this transplanted Floridian a detailed roadmap to Pullman, at the very least a GPS app for his phone, anything to navigate his way around the Palouse. OK, maybe just a playbook will do.
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