michael penix

Faced with 2nd & 7 on the Washington 12 yard line, leading 20-13 midway through the fourth quarter, Michigan gave the ball to Blake Corum. With three TEs to the bottom of the formation, the Wolverines pulled AJ Barner across, along with left guard Trevor Keegan running to the right. Barner hit his block but Keegan wasn't quick enough to get to Washington LB Alphonzo Tuputala, who had a free run at Corum. The diminutive running back saw Tuputala to his outside and cutback inside. Tuputala whiffed on his tackle attempt and with no proper safety help behind him, Corum had a free run to the end zone. Once free, #2 sprinted into the end zone, snapping a long Michigan offensive drought and giving the Wolverines the 27-13 lead. 

Washington got the football and drove into Michigan territory, but as they had all night, they encountered resistance. Pressure and good coverage slowed the Huskies down, eventually forcing star QB Michael Penix Jr. to attempt a 4th & 13. They got two cracks at it due to offsetting penalties on the first attempt, but the second ball was an interception, sailed into the arms of Mike Sainristil, who returned it 81 yards to the Washington 8 yard line. Two plays later Blake Corum punched it in again. 34-13 and this one was on ice. Bring down the confetti, pop the champagne. 

For the twelfth time in history, the Michigan Wolverines Football team are national champions. 

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[AFTER THE JUMP: the narrative]

And then there were two. The last two unbeaten teams in the 2023 college football season, #1 Michigan and #2 Washington, will do battle in Houston on Monday night with the national championship on the line. For Washington, the offense has carried them to this point, including a dazzling performance against Texas in the Sugar Bowl. Today we will be profiling that star-studded offense, looking at its strengths, tendencies, and any possible vulnerabilities: 

Content note: Some readers may know me from my work on hockey and softball over the past years, but I have been lucky enough to be hired by Brian recently to write about football and basketball, so readers who focus mostly on those sports will start to get acquainted with me pretty quickly here. For those unfamiliar, I'm a recently graduated Michigan alum and you can follow me on Twitter at @Alex_Drain. For my first football piece, I'm picking up a series that has been run on this site in the past, ranking Michigan's opponents based on positional groups. Today we start with QB. 

Quarterbacks have always been important in football, but with each passing year (pun intended, I suppose), they become more and more crucial to the collegiate game. With the likes of Justin Fields, Trevor Lawrence, Mac Jones, Tua Tagovailoa, Joe Burrow, and Kyler Murray dominating college football in recent years, the connection between elite teams and elite quarterbacks could not be clearer in the NCAA game. It's incredibly difficult to compete for a title in 2021, B1G or national, without having great QB play, and so we begin this series looking at the most important position on the field. The good news for Michigan is that there really aren't many good QB's on the schedule this year, as the Big Ten's quarterback cupboard has become rather barren. The bad news is that the Wolverines are one of those teams with a lot of uncertainty in the cupboards. Let's dive in with the school that most obviously comes to mind when you think of great quarterbacks. I'm talking of course about Indiana. 

Michael Penix Jr. sits atop our list [IU Athletics]

1. Indiana

So, yeah. IU is not really known as a football powerhouse, but what Tom Allen has done in Bloomington has been nothing short of masterful, and last season's 6-1 regular season was the cherry on top. One of the big keys to last season's success for the Hoosiers was star QB and the holder of the B1G's most unfortunate last name, Michael Penix Jr. Penix has played 12 games over the last two seasons and has been nothing short of excellent, throwing for 24 TD's to just 8 INT's, with a 61.6% completion percentage. His performance in Columbus against the Buckeyes last season fully justifies his spot at the top of the conference among QB's, throwing for 491 yards and 5 TD's, while turning it over just once. In those 12 games that Penix has played in 2019 and 2020, the Hoosiers are 10-2, a sterling record for a program whose historical baseline is far below that. 

Penix is an unusual QB because he's a lefty, one with a cannon for an arm that can launch the ball down the field off his back foot and fit the football into tight windows. Accuracy isn't always perfect, but Penix makes things happen and is the key to unlocking the Indiana offense, taking it to higher levels than were possible with the boring and steady Peyton Ramsey. That's why Penix's health is so crucial, and it's the one thing that has held back his career up to this point. He played just three games in 2018 before an ACL tear wiped out his year and forced him to take a redshirt. Then Penix played six games in 2019 before an injury to a part of the body I didn't know existed (the right sternoclavicular joint) put him out for the year, and then his 2020 season ended a few games early due to a second ACL tear. Indiana maintains that Penix is going to be ready for the fall season and is on track to start the opener, but his health is so important to the team. When Penix plays, he's money. But it's getting to the point with Penix where we just have to conclude that he's the kind of terribly snakebitten guy you don't want climbing on ladders or being around mirrors. Which is a bit strange, because Penix isn't terribly mobile. He doesn't run much (except when it's to beat Penn State), and in theory shouldn't be so injury prone. Yet he has been. 

What keeps IU at #1, though, is they have a viable backup option should Penix go down for the fourth straight season, Jack Tuttle. Tuttle was a top 200 composite recruit of Utah back in the 2018 class who transferred to Indiana in 2019. He stepped in to play when Penix got hurt near the tail-end of last season and was fine, posting a 61.1% completion clip with 2 TD and 1 INT to beat Wisconsin and Maryland, but the Hoosiers lost to Ole Miss in the bowl game. Tuttle is not Penix, but Tuttle is still a better backup than a lot of teams have, and that's good insurance if their star goes down. But for the Hoosiers to have any chance of coming out of the B1G East, they need 12 healthy games from Penix. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More QB's!]