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With Camp Near, Penix No Longer the Forgotten QB

Pro Football Focus includes the lefty on its Top 50.
Dan Raley|
With Camp Near, Penix No Longer the Forgotten QB
With Camp Near, Penix No Longer the Forgotten QB

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Washington Huskies

Someone remembers him.

With University of Washington fall camp four days away, Michael Penix Jr. finally turned up on a national listing, pegged by Pro Football Focus as the college game's 27th best quarterback.

The Indiana transfer previously was ignored by every other offseason pollster or analyst in spite of some heady credentials. 

It was almost as if his extensive injury history — four consecutive season-ending mishaps — had negated everything positive he had accomplished in leading a resurgence for the Big Ten school.

PFF's top 50 QB list is well represented by Pac-12 and Mountain West players, with USC's Caleb Williams, the Oklahoma transfer, ranking No. 2 behind Alabama's Bryce Young.

Penix trails five West Coast quarterbacks in Williams, BYU's Jaren Hall (17), former Husky and Fresno State's Jake Haener (21), Utah's Cameron Rising (24) and Oregon State's Chance Nolan (25). 

While the new UW staff hasn't selected a quarterback starter yet as fall camp unfolds, Penix is the favorite in a three-player competition that also involves returning starter Dylan Morris and Apple Cup starter Sam Huard. 

Husky coach Kalen DeBoer previously coached Penix during his sophomore season at Indiana. Penix has the advantage of running the offense now being installed. Unlike the others, the Tampa, Florida, native is highly mobile and a dual-threat player. 

As college starters, Penix holds a 12-5 win-loss record from Indiana entering his fifth year and still junior season of eligibility; Morris, a two-season starter and a sophomore from Puyallup, Washington, is 7-8; and Huard, a 5-star recruit and still just a redshirt freshman from Bellevue, Washington, has an 0-1 ledger. 

Penix and Huard are left-handers, an oddity for any college team to have more than one..

The DeBoer staff has a reputation for molding quarterbacks into productive players, with Haener the crowning example of what it can do, and each of the three Husky signal-callers expected to benefit.

Regardless, Penix is no longer the forgotten man when others are sizing up the leading QBs.

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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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