Penix accounted for over 460 total yards on 29-of-38 passing and a pair of touchdowns in the Sugar Bowl.
There wasn’t a single play Michael Penix Jr. couldn’t make Monday night. When Texas blanketed his receivers, the Washington quarterback fired lasers across the middle. When the Longhorns brought pressure, Penix peppered his checkdowns. And when he found his favorite weapons streaking down the field? Penix’s volley of rainbows raced Washington further toward the end zone.
In Washington’s 37-31 thrilling shootout win over Texas in the Sugar Bowl, Penix may have produced his magnum opus to launch the Huskies into a national championship game date with Michigan next Monday night.
There were 592 first-place Heisman votes given to players other than Penix. The 23-year-old played Monday night like he was trying to send personal game tape to all 592 of those voters.
Penix accounted for over 460 total yards (430 through the air, 31 on the ground) on 29-of-38 passing and a pair of touchdowns. He played both the role of orchestrator — operating five different scoring drives of eight-plus plays — and magician, thrilling the New Orleans crowd with a barrage of 20-plus yard plays. Penix was named the offensive MVP of the game, with Bralen Trice earning the defensive honor.
He fed Rome Odunze, his season-long favorite target, with six catches for 125 yards, each long strike more backbreaking than the last.
Penix and the Huskies offense didn’t take long to warm up, as he connected with Ja’Lynn Polk for a 77-yard bomb on Washington’s fourth play of the game. Running back Dillon Johnson plowed in a 2-yard score seconds later — the first of Johnson’s two scores — to open the floodgates.
Polk finished with 122 yards on five catches and a touchdown.
To Texas’ credit, the Longhorns never crumpled against the buzzsaw. Quarterback Quinn Ewers faced nonstop pressure from Washington’s relentless front seven, and when the Longhorns passer wasn’t being sacked he was often finding targets in all corners of the field.
Despite struggling to get the ball to his star receivers Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell, Ewers finished with 318 yards on 24-of-43 passing with a touchdown, while driving the Longhorns into the red zone repeatedly, resulting in three more rushing scores.
But in the end, Penix’s greatness was suffocating. Despite Ewers’ steady play, untimely turnovers meant the Longhorns managed just five offensive plays.
