Wednesday Dots: The Penix Mightier

Down here the river

Meets the sea

And in the sticky heat I feel ya’

Open up the Dots

• Michael Penix has officially won the starting QB job for the Washington Huskies. Mike Vorel explains the path that took Penix from Indiana to Montlake and how he ultimately beat out the incumbents to take the QB1 spot on the depth chart.

• Larry Stone also weighs in on Penix, opining that the transfer provides the Dawgs with the best chance to quickly instill the explosive offense Kalen Deboer envisages. Stone cites the 491 yard, 5 TD game Penix hung on #3 Ohio State in 2020 as evidence of the potential for this offense when things are going right for the new QB.

• Christian Caple offers his own analysis of the QB battle for The Athletic. Caple focuses on Deboer’s complimentary sentiments about Dylan Morris and Sam Huard. While it’s not surprising that both would be on a positive track with the new coaching staff, it’s promising to hear that the three had a true competition and Penix won the job with performance rather than by default.

• At Dawgman, Chris Fetters has the full transcript of what Ryan Grubb had to say about Penix and the QB battle through the spring and fall practices.

• If you look hard enough, you can find some college football news that isn’t about Penix or the UW QB job. At The Athletic, Matt Fortuna and Chris Vannini took on the giant task of ranking all FBS coaches in tiers. Deboer received a solid ranking in Tier 3, the same as the likes of Dave Aranda, Chip Kelly, and Jonathan Smith. Around the rest of the Pac, Kyle Whittingham and Lincoln Riley made it into Tier 1b, which is the highest “not Nick Saban” tier.

• It’s not a UW-specific piece, but ESPN’s Chris Low has a nice profile of his own preseason All-American team. If you can guess the one Pac-12 rep who isn’t from USC, you’re the official UWDP Reader of the Day.