Husky Stadium X Factor: It's Michael Penix Jr. vs. Bo Nix
They're both Southern gentlemen who've simultaneously set down in the Northwest, looking to launch NFL careers some day by dazzling everyone coast to coast with their college football talents.
Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. was born and raised in Florida, while Oregon counterpart Bo Nix was born in Arkansas and raised in Alabama.
How y'all doin', fellahs?
For that matter, Penix speaks with a soft Southern drawl, Nix with nary an oral giveaway of where he's from when he rattles off a sentence.
As their unbeaten teams gather at a sold-out Husky Stadium on Saturday afternoon for the biggest college football game of the day and this 115-year rivalry series, with ESPN-TV cameras beaming the feverish action to the rest of the country, these superlative and well-traveled QBs should put on quite a show at Husky Stadium.
Penix and Nix, they sound like brothers. If they were super heroes, they'd be X-Men. Instead, they'll be X factors in front of some 70,000 fans stuffed into the Montlake double decks. Hey, Vin Diesel should be here for this one.
Penix leads the nation in passing yards per game (399.8), Nix in passing completion rate (.804). It's largely because of them that both teams enter this matchup unbeaten (5-0 overall, 2-0 Pac-12) and facing each other both as top 10-ranked teams (UW No. 7, Oregon 8th) for the first time in series history.
A year ago, the 6-foot-3, 213-pound Penix and Nix, one inch shorter and four pounds heavier, dueled all the way to the end at a sold-out Autzen Stadium before Peyton Henry's 43-yard field goal with 51 seconds remaining sailed through the uprights and provided the Huskies with a thrilling, hard-earned 37-34 win.
"Obviously, it's one I've been looking forward to just because of last year and how it ended," Nix said this week in Eugene.
Once all of the pandemic eligibility freebies have been exhausted across the college football landscape, we might not see another quarterback matchup similar to this one again, where the players are as roundly accomplished, deeply experienced and genuinely battle-tested as these two.
Penix, the Indiana transfer, is playing in his sixth college season, though four of them ended prematurely with knee, shoulder and collarbone injuries, while Nix, the Auburn import, is five years into his college career, with his 2021 campaign cut short by a broken ankle.
They're healthy now, at the top of their games, ready to come out slinging.
"You've got two undefeated teams, top 10, coming in and can play," Penix said. "You know the other side, they're not that far away from us either, to they'll travel some people, as well. So it'll be a great atmosphere."
Bo Nix came to Oregon from Auburn.
James Snook/USA TODAY Sports
The quarterbacks are each 23 years old and practically have seen it all after breaking the huddle over and over. In their two stops, Nix beat Alabama and LSU when he was in the SEC, plus North Carolina in a bowl game last December, while Penix put down Michigan and Penn State in the Big Ten, plus Texas in the postseason 10 months ago — and, of course, Oregon.
Consider their dizzying career passing stats entering Saturday's game: Penix has completed 837 of 1,308 passes for 10,837 yards and 76 touchdowns in the Pac-12 and Big Ten; Nix is even better, with 1,053 completions out of 1,629 attempts for 12,303 yards and 78 TDs in the Pac-12 and SEC. Those are NFL numbers.
Nix became an Auburn starter as a true freshman, Penix at Indiana as a redshirt freshman. As first-teamers, Nix has a collective 36-16 win-loss record, 15-3 at Oregon; Penix is 28-7 overall, 16-2 at Washington.
Yet it's that one game in Eugene last November that provided a huge stage for these players. Each guy threw a pair of home run balls, with Penix letting loose with 76- and 62-yard touchdown spirals while Nix responded with 46- and 67-yard scoring strikes.
Penix finished that day with passing stats of 26 for 35 and 408 yards and those 2 scores; Nix was good on 19 of 27 balls for 280 yards and his 2 TDs.
It was a rivalry game for the ages, with the UW and Oregon trading the lead six times before that one was decided.
Michael Penix Jr. has been a magician with the football at the UW.
USA Today
As they consider another epic battle in Seattle, the weather has called for a 70-percent chance of rain during the contest, enough to throw things into disarray some and force Penix and Nix to have to work extra hard to get things done. Wet or dry, it should be highly entertaining.
"Yeah, it's going to be a top 10 matchup, and it's going to be a lot of noise and a lot of hype," Nix said. "But at the same time, you know you've got to strap it up and go play football, and do what we do and, they're going to do the same."
Now this could be the last of two college football showdowns for Penix and Nix. Or dare to dream — and no apologies to USC and Caleb Williams — they might even end up playing yet again in the Pac-12 championship game in Las Vegas. And, of course, in the NFL.
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