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: 

 

The Film: I decided to chart the Texas game because it's the most recent outing and was against (probably) the best team Washington has played. As always, though, I will be drawing upon footage from games across the season, notably from the Oregon games for this piece. 

Personnel: Click for big. 

Washington's QB for this game is an Indiana cult classic named Michael Penix Jr. You may have heard of him at some point. He has battled injury issues throughout his collegiate career but has managed to stay healthy behind an excellent pass pro OL since transferring to Washington post-2021. Penix and Kalen DeBoer have brought out the best in each other and after an already strong 2022, Penix and his elite WRs have hit a tremendous peak in '23. He has thrown for 4,648 yards and 35 TDs on 66.7% completion at 9.2 Y/A. His 163.5 passer rating is near the best in the country and only has 9 INTs to go with it. Penix finished as the Heisman runner-up and then played the game of his life against Texas. He is the heartbeat of Washington Football in 2023. 

Maybe the team's most underrated piece is also their biggest question mark going into Monday night, star RB Dillon Johnson. While Penix and the WRs get most of the praise, Johnson is a heck of a player too, which makes his availability and effectiveness for the title game so crucial. Johnson got hurt on the final offensive snap from scrimmage against Texas, leaving the field on a cart. Washington has projected a confident posture since then, claiming that Johnson re-aggravated an injury he's been working through. Okay then. Doesn't really pass the smell test in terms of the visuals of the injury but stranger things have happened. 

Regardless, Washington is a much better team with a healthy Johnson on the field because he's a good hard runner who makes the most of his opportunities and raises that phase of the game for the Huskies, especially since their OL is not great in run blocking. But just as important, Johnson is a savant in blitz pick-ups, crushing Texas' blitzes when they got unblocked rushers up the gut, an art the Mississippi State transfer was trained in by the late, great Mike Leach. The other RBs are Tybo Rogers and Will Nixon, whose rushing attempts combined don't even amount to 1/3 the number of carries of Johnson this season. It will be a downgrade if Johnson is not his usual self and more Rogers/Nixon are needed by the Huskies. 

The WR room is the one that gets all the attention, and for good reason. It is excellent. Rome Odunze is projected for the top-half of the 1st round in 2024 and was one of the consensus three best receivers in CFB this season alongside OSU's Marvin Harrison Jr. and LSU's Malik Nabers. Odunze is 6'3" and can run, racking up 1,428 receiving yards and 13 receiving touchdowns this season, earning the Dangerman designation for this piece. Ja'Lynn Polk was a 3* recruit once upon a time but has since solidified himself as a Day 2 draft pick, not as good as Odunze but still a very good player. Polk is 6'2" himself and has 1,122 receiving yards + 9 TDs to his name. Not bad!

[AFTER THE JUMP: Yum!]

The slot is Jalen McMillan, who was hurt for most of the season but has returned with a vengeance, nine catches against Oregon in the PAC-12 Championship Game and five against Texas. Scouts see him more in the mid-to-late rounds of the NFL Draft but he should not be discounted. WR4 and WR5 are two transfers from Michigan schools, the former being MSU transfer Germie Bernard, who was a prized Mel Tucker recruit in the 2022 class who spent a year as a background character for Sparty and then realized going back west to Washington and playing for Kalen DeBoer was a better long-term play (he was right about that). Bernard is 6'1" and has a role in the offense as a jet sweep guy (sometimes lines up in the backfield too) but isn't prominent as a receiver yet (that will likely come next year). WR5 is our old friend Giles Jackson, who hasn't gotten a ton of work on offense this season, with just 14 catches. 

The reason that Bernard and Jackson haven't gotten many targets, besides being behind star receivers, is Washington does throw to their TEs quite a bit. Jack Westover has 41 catches for 391 yards on the season, with a strong showing against Texas in the game I charted. Don't mistake him for Brock Bowers, but he's a good player and can pass protect or flex out when Washington spreads it out. Devin Culp is the backup TE, with 15 catches this season, a taller option than Westover but an equally fine pass protector. Josh Cuevas and Quentin Moore are among the reserve TE options but they haven't been used all that much this season. 

Washington's OL dethroned Michigan for the Joe Moore Award in 2023 and the main reason for that is their pass protection abilities. Their two tackles, Troy Fautanu at LT and Roger Rosengarten, are stars in my charting. Fautanu in particular has been featured on NFL Draft boards, while Rosengarten may have the ability to get there at some point. These two players completely stuffed Texas' EDGE guys in a locker all night long in New Orleans. Their guards, Nate Kalepo and Julius Buelow, are a cut below the tackles and did give up interior rush to Texas' elite DTs. This is a big OL, with four of five starters being 6'4" or taller and all of those are 300+ lbs. The only exception is the C Parker Brailsford, who is just 6'2", 275, but he held up better than some anticipated against Texas. Washington has allowed just 11 sacks this season, 4th fewest in CFB, and this OL's pass protecting abilities are why. They're not particularly good on the ground, but they are expertly coached and groomed at protecting the QB. 

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Spread, pro-style, or hybrid: Washington runs a fully spread offense that is nearly entire shotgun: 

Formation	Run	PA	Pass	Total
Shotgun	29	5	34	47%
Under Center	1	1	1	53%

It's a pass-first, pass-heavy offense that is built on spreading you out vertically (through dynamite downfield receiving threats) and laterally (through heavy doses of WR screens). Their pass-happy tendencies can be seen in our play distribution by down chart: 

Down	Run	Pass
1st	14	21
2nd	10	13
3rd	4	7
4th	2	-

As a team this season, UW has attempted 523 passes to 380 non-sack rushes. These guys love to throw the football. 

Base set: With Kalen DeBoer, one of the country's craftiest, most fun offensive minds at the helm, you have to expect a wide variety of formations. Washington generally plays out of 11 personnel, so your base sets are either standard: 

Or with the TE flexed, which features a lot: 

Washington loves to go 2x2 with the TE flexed and in some cases 3x1, running a lot of screens out of the TE flexed alignment.

Sometimes in 11 personnel they line a WR like Jalen McMillan or Germie Bernard in the backfield: 

On that one you've got the RB exiting the backfield, a WR acting like a RB next to Penix, and a TE flexed like a WR. 

I charted very few 12 personnel snaps (no 13) and all had the TEs on either side of the formation: 

Gap or zone blocking: Washington was mostly a gap team against Texas. Their general offensive philosophy is 1.) have devastating deep threats who make you keep the safeties deep, 2.) exploit the deep safeties by targeting your underneath coverage East-West through WR screens, 3.) exploit the defenders spreading out to cover the receivers by running gap plays into light boxes and picking up chunks on the ground via Dillon Johnson. They showed a little bit of inside zone/outside zone as a run game complement but it was mostly gap stuff, Power as the base but a pretty wide variety, backside pulls, frontside pulls, pulling the center, one guy pulling, two guys pulling, etc. 

Hurry it up or grind it out: Didn't notice a ton of interesting tempo stuff from Washington. They move at a rather deliberate speed and will pepper in tempo to keep you off guard here and there but it's not super breakneck. They had one quick snap that caught Texas off guard that I wrote down, but otherwise not a ton that caught my eye. 

Quarterback Dilithium Rating (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): You may recall Michael Penix Jr.'s mobility at Indiana, when he may or may not have legally hit the pylon in a game that beat PSU back in 2020. Multiple devastating injuries have sapped Penix of some of that mobility, so he doesn't rate too highly on our scale. But let's be clear, he's not Peyton Manning. He can move, he just doesn't very often. He has very few non-sack carries on the season but Kalen DeBoer has shown it's something he is willing to go to when the going gets tough. He dialed it up on a huge 3rd down in the PAC-12 Championship Game: 

DeBoer drew up designed QB run twice against Texas and both times it proved an effective changeup because the Longhorns were not at all prepared for it. With the LBs and DBs spread out laterally to deal with Washington's receiving talent, Penix feasted on an exposed box. One example: 

I would assume they will try to run Penix a few times in the National Championship Game, so Michigan should come ready. When Penix does run, he's not bad at it, okay speed but he's got a nice frame at 6'3", 213 to power through some contact. You won't be wowed by him but he's a capable runner. 

What he isn't is much of a scrambler. Penix moves on designed rollouts but he rarely uses those as an opportunity to scramble. When the pocket constricts and pressure comes, he's much more likely to use that situation as a throwaway rather than a chance to scramble for free yards. A season line of 21 non-sack carries (1.5 per game) for 93 yards (4.4 YPC) speaks for itself. We'll give Penix a 3 to recognize him being not completely immobile, but Penix is, by and large, a pocket passer. 

Dangerman: With the QB having his own section of this piece, the only choice for Dangerman is WR Rome Odunze. A bona fide superstar, Odunze is a phenomenal receiver who shows up in the biggest moments of games. Most teams build their gameplans around Odunze first and then go from there because he's that level of weapon. A consensus All-American and a 2x All-PAC 12 First Team selection, Odunze was also a Biletnikoff Award finalist. If you liked Will Johnson vs. Marvin Harrison Jr. in The Game, you will love its sequel, Will Johnson vs. Rome Odunze. 

Odunze is a deadly vertical threat and when combined with his QB's arm, you get "godDAMN!!" plays like this: 

Sometimes it doesn't lead to a catch but you can get the ole underthrown ball = DPI call: 

These were his best highlights from the Sugar Bowl, but my favorite clips are his contested catches/jump balls against Oregon. He had two of 'em in his first meeting with the Ducks: 

Odunze's advanced numbers are crazy. Not just is Odunze one of PFF's top 10 graded wide receivers with at least 30 targets (his overall and receiving grades are almost identical to MHJ), but take a look at these contested catch numbers [also, hello there, Cornelius Johnson]: 

Contested catch % for WR prospects, via PFF (2023, min 10 Tgt) pic.twitter.com/st0L3WNZSO

— James Foster (@NoFlagsFilm) January 4, 2024

When the lights shine brightest, Odunze and Penix are at their most money: 

Fun nugget I just found for the title game preview: Michael Penix Jr. has thrown 21 passes to Rome Odunze when UW's in-game win probability (per FPI) was under 50% this year.

Those passes are 19-for-21 for 333 yards. RIDICULOUS.

— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) January 3, 2024

Odunze doesn't have to be open by much, or open at all, to catch a bomb on your defense. He's clearly the offense's best WR, even on a team with a lot of talented receivers, and Jesse Minter is going to have to decide how he wants to defend Odunze and work backwards The good news is Will Johnson has as much practice as anyone in CFB for this job with two separate cracks at Marvin Harrison Jr. in his career. 

HenneChart: The name "Michael Penix Jr." first appeared in this column over four years ago, when Seth was doing the charting for the late November Michigan/Indiana game. Penix was injured for that game but this is how Seth referred to him: "in the interim their freshman phenom quarterback/fount of much phrasing Michael Penix went out for the year". A year later, Michigan faced a healthy Penix in the (fake) 2020 season and Seth wrote the following: "Penix is a thrill. Not just for sophomoric beat writers either ... (Penix) is going to do at least one WTF thing against Michigan".

In the run up to the 2021 season, your author wrote his first ever The Enemy, Ranked: QB piece and pegged Indiana as the #1 QB room because of Penix, writing "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". The rest of the piece mostly talked about Penix needing to stay healthy but never once did I doubt his greatness. Unfortunately, Penix did not stay healthy, injured early in that season and by the time I was charting Indiana in November, they were starting a true freshman wide receiver as a wildcat QB. 

When Kalen DeBoer was hired by Washington, Penix transferred to UW and went back with his old offensive coordinator. Finally playing behind a line that could protect him, and playing with better receivers than Indiana could ever dream of rostering, Penix has taken that raw talent we all saw and turned it into a profile that will likely land him in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft. After his game against Texas, I'd say it's more likely than not that Penix sticks in the first. 

So, about that Texas game. Wowza. Chart: 

Wash. vs. Texas	Good				Neutral			Bad					Ovr
Quarterback	DO	CA	SCR		PR	MA		BA	TA	IN	BR		DSR	Screens
Michael Penix	6	16	1		1	2		-	3	3	-		79%	9

This was by far the best QB game I've charted in my time doing FFFF and frankly, it's one of the greatest college QB games I've ever seen, especially the first three quarters. Penix made throw after throw that college QBs are not supposed to be able to make with regularity, dropping dimes into tight windows and carving up Texas like a pumpkin. I mean, what the hell: 

The windows Penix throws into are astonishing, but when he's on his game he hits them dead-on because his velocity and tight spiral are as good as it gets: 

Another: 

Penix's delivery is so quick and he can rifle balls in seemingly effortless fashion, just a quick flick of the wrist and boom, he's launched another rocket. Penix made a half-dozen breathtaking throws against Texas, yet I've almost come to expect that from him. What impressed me the most was how comfortable he looked against the interior rush Texas got, sidestepping a monster like a T'Vondre Swift and then uncorking a laser for another first down: 

His pocket presence looked superb. The important caveat hanging over the Texas game is the poor performance of Texas' EDGE guys. I'm not sure how he would've responded to that interior rush if there was more going on in the pocket besides it, but he probably wouldn't have been as effective. Penix has also played a lot of college football and is pretty good at reading coverages. He knows what's going on, makes quick decisions, and then pulls the trigger. The zero bad reads I marked him down for reflects that. When Penix is on, he's the most fun QB in CFB and a true joy to watch, and he was definitely on against Texas. At one point, he was 18/21 for 330 yards (!!!). You cannot realistically do better than that.

However, we shouldn't be totally star struck by Penix's Texas performance because it's important to remember that he normally isn't that level of good. There are plenty of games this season where he wasn't anywhere close. His performance in the back-half of the regular season (combined with Jayden Daniels going God Mode) cost Penix the Heisman when he was once the frontrunner. He was 18/33 for 204 against Wazzu, 13/28 for 162 in the rain against Oregon State, and 27/42 for 275 and 2 INTs against Arizona State. We can't erase those performances or pretend they don't matter just because the Texas game was a pantheon effort. 

Unpacking why Penix has those down games is hard. Some Washington folks point to weather constraints and/or sickness, which I suppose is possible. I'd say the more likely thing is that while Penix has astonishing deep ball accuracy,  sometimes his overall accuracy is just off: 

He did have one miss like that against Texas: 

Penix is a career 63.6% completion sort of QB, not 70-75% and that's important to remember. Like all QBs, Penix is worse under pressure, but there's another sizable split here like there was for McCord and Milroe (JJ's kept clean vs. under pressure split is much smaller). PFF has Penix at 73.6% completion when kept clean and 45.1% under pressure. The Texas game was as much about Penix playing out of his mind as it was Texas failing to get any real pressure and Penix doing what he does in those conditions.

If you can get pressure on him, Penix can show some cracks. ASU dialed up a zero blitz in the red zone and forced an INT out of Penix: 

And Texas got a bit more effective at generating pressure towards the end of the game, when UW's offense began to slow from its torrid early pace. They finally got a blitz home here and forced a crucial throwaway: 

Penix, as we outlined in the Dilithium Scale section, is not JJ McCarthy when it comes to being able to spin away from a rusher, dance outside the pocket, and then make an acrobatic throw on the run. Penix can roll and move some, but the improvisation isn't a feature of his game. If you can stop him from setting his feet or put so much pressure he's flushed out of the pocket, he's more likely to throw it away than really hurt you off-script. The reverse of the pressure thing is I felt Texas was weirdly effective when dropping eight at puzzling Penix and forcing throwaways. They only dropped eight a few times but they forced two of Penix's three throwaways in this game on those few snaps: 

Michael Penix Jr. is an awesome QB, my favorite to watch that I've charted. Beating him involves some combination of getting pressure and confusing him with complicated coverages, whether that is dropping eight, mixing coverages, or  whatever it may be. If you let Penix sit in the pocket unbothered and he knows what the coverage is, he will kill you. Even if he's not as accurate as he was against Texas, in those circumstances, Penix is going to beat you. Life has to be harder on Penix, and whether Michigan does this through confusing him, pressuring him, or simply covering his receivers better, that is the primary objective of this side of the ball. 

 

Overview

The Washington Huskies head into Houston on Monday night with the 4th ranked offense in SP+, a spectacular unit that has posted some excellent results this season. They've earned their credentials and deserve to be playing in this National Championship Game, where they will meet a Michigan defense much better than anything Washington has seen. This will also be the best offense Michigan has faced. That's the fun part of this matchup. 

In the days since the Michigan-Washington final was written in ink, a common refrain has come up that compares this UW offense to Ohio State's 2021 offense. As someone who charted and wrote a lot of words about that offense, I will say that I definitely get the vague archetype. You have two cases of NFL caliber QBs passing to a really talented WR group behind a very good pass-protecting line. I think that's the same mold and I think Michigan being so drilled in their "Ohio State Defense" is going to very much be useful for this one. 

But I do think we ought to pump the brakes just a tiny bit on the comparisons to 2021 Ohio State. That offense has a case for being the best in college football history and a lot was written about that possibility at the time (I would lean to 2019 LSU over them but they're in the convo), so I don't like making comparisons there for the same reason we normally don't like comparing DTs to Mo Hurst. The bar is too lofty. I do think Penix at his best is a college QB in the same neighborhood as CJ Stroud and I do think Rome Odunze matches up with either Garrett Wilson or Chris Olave. He's a stud, no doubt. But the other weapons are not the same level for me and I'm not sure there's the same level of OL talent on this team (OSU had two guys at tackle who started the whole 2022 season for NFL teams and a guard who went top 10 in 2023 (after moving to OT)). The statistics are also not quite the same, as OSU 2021 averaged nearly 90 more yards per game and was much better on the ground. Similar mold, not same caliber. 

But what then, is 2023 Washington's offense? In short, a unit with a really good QB, a really good pass protecting line (and RB), a really good set of receivers, and a tremendous offensive play-calling coach. What aren't they as good at? They're not a particularly great rushing team (4.4 YPC as a team), which isn't necessary a slight on their RB. He's good, but the line doesn't excel in that regard and the QB doesn't add a consistent threat. Passing is how they make their hay. 

With that in mind, let's dig into the other individual pieces before pivoting back to the big picture at the end. I've already given you the big two names, but the third one is probably WR Ja'Lynn Polk. Right now he's seen as a Day 2 NFL Draft pick but you can certainly see why there's interest from professional teams. He can be super dangerous vertically like Odunze: 

The concentration required to bring this TD catch in is impressive as well: 

Assuming Michigan goes matchup (which they did against OSU) rather than left/right (which they did vs. 'Bama), Polk vs. Josh Wallace could be as important as Johnson vs. Odunze (FWIW, Polk's PFF grade is very similar to Isaiah Bond's). Here's one more great catch of Polk's that I flagged, this one against Oregon: 

The other marquee matchup in this game is going to be Mike Sainristil vs. slot WR Jalen McMillan. He battled injuries for much of this season but McMillan is now healthy and is quite good. He is useful for finding a soft spot in the zone and getting himself open, running deep crossers over the middle, or running WR screens with. I already showed him in one of the Penix clips, so I want to instead use this one because it's a good introduction into Washington's screen game: 

As shown in the HenneChart table, Washington ran nine screens against Texas, which is quite a bit and typically they looked something like this, thrown to a wide receiver with wide receivers blocking, which had a lot of success because those receivers blocked extremely well. They did a run a few screens with the OL blocking out in space too, including this one for WR Germie Bernard that picked up a big chunk: 

Once Washington is done punishing you down the field vertically, they start spreading it laterally to Bernard, McMillan, and in some cases, Odunze. The other component of the intermediate game are the TEs, led by Jack Westover. I showed one clip of him in the Penix section, but this is another nice catch he made: 

One thing that I think we shouldn't forget about the Sugar Bowl is while Penix played an exceptional game, so did his receivers. They made just about every contested catch and this diving snag by Westover is an example of how they managed to bring in every marginal ball as well. They were hooping. 

The other group who balled out against Texas was the offensive line. Washington's offensive line is an excellent pass blocking group, ranking 5th nationally as a team with an 83.5 pass block grade in PFF's data. Their tackles, Troy Fautanu and Roger Rosengarten, both rank in the high 80s in pass block grading, while the C Parker Brailsford isn't far behind. The guards are a bit more wobbly, and that showed up in the Texas tape against the Longhorns' elite DTs, but the overall pass protection was strong because the OTs were tremendous against the Texas EDGE guys all night long. You probably noticed the lack of pressure in the copious clips I've shown you of Washington passing highlights in this piece. That was a story of the game. 

Part of the OL's success, though, isn't just about the tackles winning 1-on-1s with EDGEs. The other half of the success comes from how well coached and responsible they are when it comes to dealing with blitzes, which also includes the blitz pickups of RB Dillon Johnson. Let's see this clip again: 

Texas threw LB blitzes at Washington often and very few of them got home, which left their DBs exposed and Penix masterfully picked them apart. The OL is extremely well disciplined and coached when it comes to IDing blitzes and picking them up, especially when the wrecking ball Johnson is back there to crush a free rusher coming up the gut. If Johnson is not able to go or is limited in snaps due to injury, that will be a big blow for UW in the pass protection phase. 

The rushing game isn't particularly special and serves mostly as a changeup to complement their passing game. At its best it punishes light boxes or targets the perimeter by pulling OL into space and getting strong blocks from the WRs. This reel of Johnson's highlights from his strong game against Oregon gives you a good sense of what Washington's run game looks like at its best: 

You may notice a Wildcat snap in there. Yes, that's something they go to. Kalen DeBoer is a madman. Also a note on that clip: Johnson is really good as a runner too. I like him a lot, as he makes the most of what his limited (in run blocking) line can create for him. 

The Oregon game in Vegas was a banner day for Johnson but the reality is that Washington's rushing game is a sidepiece to its passing attack and the OL does not specialize in run blocking. Against Texas' superstar DTs, there wasn't a ton of running room for Johnson, averaging just 2.3 YPC. Example: 

The run block grades for the OL are all in the 50-60 range, so if Michigan's DL performs like usual, I'm not expecting there to be a ton of push from these guys. DeBoer will need to be creative to manufacture running room for his team, whether it's leaning on Penix, using end-arounds/jet sweeps, etc. In short yardage situations against Texas, the Huskies really struggled to grind out yards, including being stuffed on a 3rd & 1 and a 4th & 1, turning the ball over on downs deep in Texas territory on one occasion (note: DeBoer is a very aggressive decision-maker on 4th downs). They are not built to bully you in short-yardage situations, especially not when going up against top-of-the-line DTs. Stuff like this is what they'll have to go to more: 

Even so, Texas did well to limit the gains and I think given what Michigan has shown us tackling in space and reading the run game this season, it is quite possible that they can come close to replicating the Horns' performance in this phase. 

One final Washington offense note: Kalen DeBoer does a ton of cool stuff. He also loves to be aggressive on 4th downs. Trick plays and aggression on 4th down are something Michigan has to be ready for. He went for it on 4th down twice against Texas, once on his own side of midfield. Against Washington State, DeBoer went for one of the most reckless 4th downs I can remember, tie game with 1:20 to go, 4th & 1 from his own 29 yard line. Essentially game on the line if you go for it, which he did. And he dipped into the bag big time with this one: 

I wouldn't be surprised if he gives us another version of the Jeff Brohm fake flea flicker or something like that. DeBoer's always got something cool ready to go. 

 

What does this mean for Michigan? 

On Michigan's end of things, I think the approach is similar to how they took on Ohio State this season (or each of the last few years). Trust that you can defend the run with light boxes because you have an elite DL and very good linebackers, going up against a team that does not excel in run blocking and has posted statistically middling rushing results. Michigan held Ohio State to 4.1 YPC (sack-adjusted) devoting few resources to do so and I think after watching the Texas tape that's a pretty reasonable ballpark. Michigan's DTs aren't as dominant as Texas' but they're very good and Michigan has a sound run defense as a whole. You should be able to survive going light in the box with the level of talent you have there. 

Which allows you to devote more resources to the pass game. In coverage, it's up to Jesse Minter to decide how he's going to defend Odunze. What we can probably bank on is another laundry list of coverages that will make Coach Twitter buzz because not just do you need to cover Odunze, you need to make life difficult on Mike Penix. He's too experienced of a QB to be giving him simple coverages; he'll know where to go with the football and how to make quick work of your defense. Throwing out a lot of different looks that mess with his reads is a good way to challenge Penix in a way that is rather unique. Very few college defenses run the breadth of coverages Michigan does and the PAC-12 in particular has been mostly single high (not a lot of match quarters out there). 

To that point, while I have a decent approximation of what Michigan will look like defensively against Washington and the results they can get (from three years' worth of data against Ohio State), I have very little idea of what degree of success Washington's offense can achieve against Michigan. The PAC-12 was pretty light on elite defenses this year, the only one being UCLA, who happened to be the only bowl eligible team Washington didn't play. Scanning through pass rush and coverage PFF grades both on a team and individual basis yields very few comparables to what Michigan offers. For example, the trio of Mike Sainristil, Will Johnson, and Josh Wallace would all individually be the highest graded PFF cornerback Washington has faced this season(!!). Washington has played one team all season with a PFF team coverage grade in the top 50... Michigan ranks 1st in that category. Washington played two teams in the top 40 of PFF pass rush grade... Michigan ranks 4th in that category. 

 

[University of Washington Athletics/Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Based on SP+, the best defense Washington has seen was Texas' at 11th, but that defense is an odd one, impeccable in run defense and extremely pedestrian in pass defense. Not hard to see why Washington's offense, given its strengths, had considerable success. When you look at Texas' defense by PFF grades, there's no real comparison to Michigan, as it looks mostly like a team with two Aaron Donalds and then nine "just guys" sort of players. They aren't anywhere near as balanced as Michigan and their secondary is no comparison on Michigan's experience and results. Texas' pass defense ceded 244 yards on 9.4 Y/A to Jalen Milroe and Alabama when they met the Tide. Five different Alabama receivers had a catch of 25+ yards in that game(!), the same Alabama team whose downfield passing attack was nonexistent against Michigan. That Texas got beaten by Washington badly through the air isn't all that surprising- but we also have enough evidence to conclude that Michigan has a much, much better pass defense than Texas. 

To Texas' credit, their coverage wasn't smoked. Rather, their 60-PFF grade corners just got beat by a step or two on most routes and Penix playing the game of his life meant every single one of those was a 30+ yard completion. Penix can punish every mistake when he's on his game, which is terrifying! Michigan needs to do a lot more, through disguising/mixing coverages and getting pressure, to ensure Penix is off his game.

That brings us to the other difference between Texas and Michigan's defenses, the pass rush. Michigan's DTs have pass rush win rates in the same ballpark as Texas' monsters (a bit worse, but close), but the Texas EDGEs are down in the 5-10% range in the metric while Michigan's are 15-20%. By pass rush win rate as tracked by PFF, all four of Michigan's rotational EDGE guys have a higher pass rush win rate than the best Texas EDGE in that metric. You can't expect consistent success against an OL as good in pass protection as Washington's, but there have gotta be more of them than Texas generated and luckily, we have decent evidence that Michigan's EDGEs are better at pass rushing than Texas'. 

 

[University of Washington Athletics/Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Sifting through Washington's results to find comparable EDGE players to what Michigan boasts is also hard. The PAC-12 was lacking elite rushers. Utah had Jonah Elliss, a 246 lb. EDGE with great stats but he was the lone good rusher on Utah, which is a bit apples-to-oranges to Michigan's situation. I think Michigan will have some organic pass rush success against Washington, but probably not a ton. This is by far the best pass protecting OL Michigan has seen this season, though of course Michigan is the best DL that Washington will have seen. The best hope for organic rush is probably occasional wins on the edge matched with more consistent hurries (like Texas got) against the guards. Beyond that, Jesse Minter's biggest task is figuring out how to draw up blitzes that have more success than what Texas used (for the most part). Texas mostly blitzed their linebackers... I'm curious about more DB blitzes as a method. 

Overall, Michigan's defensive philosophy over the past couple seasons is a good approach of how to contain Washington. Their personnel and strategy is designed to defeat a pro-style, spread passing attack that features a high end QB and high end receiver talent. Huzzah, meet Washington. If there was ever a team with the right defense to slow down 2023 Washington enough to win a singular game, it would probably be Michigan. That doesn't mean it will happen... because Michael Penix Jr. is an extremely good QB and the sort of difference maker who can transcend all talent gaps when he's on. If he plays out of his mind again on Monday as he did against Texas, there's a real chance Washington could score enough to win. The receiving talent is also elite enough to make plays against good coverage. But as much as Washington tests Michigan, Michigan also tests Washington and that's important to remember. Two great playcallers going at it, great players on both sides. It's going to be a very fun battle.

If you can slow the run game down without committing too many resources and tackle well on those WR screens to limit chunk gains, you can make UW play in 3rd & long. From there, mix coverages and find ways to generate pressure, be it organic or crafty designed blitzes, and challenge Penix. That's the path to beating the Huskies. For as good as their offense is, Washington has only touched 40+ points twice since the end of September, once against abominable Stanford and once against the garbage USC defense. They were held to 22 by Oregon State, 31 by Arizona, and 24 by Wazzu. Some of that were down games from Penix, but part of it is finishing drives in the red zone and turnovers. Michigan's OSU defense is one designed to make the opponent drive the field and force field goals in the red zone and if they can do that against Washington, they have a good shot of winning.