If there’s one appeal for NFL fans to watch college sports, it’s watching the quarterbacks bloom and announce themselves as the future of the sport. The College Football Playoffs have been a proving ground for many top draft picks, from Clemson‘s Trevor Lawrence to Alabama‘s Tua Tagovailoa to LSU‘s Joe Burrow. This year, the story centers around Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr., but his argument is a little different than the others mentioned above.
You can’t have a rational discussion on Penix’s prospects at the next level without mentioning his injury history. The 23-year-old suffered four consecutive season-ending injuries at Indiana, including two ACL tears and a joint dislocation in both shoulders. The Washington quarterback has not missed a game over the past two seasons, but the wear-and-tear will lower his ceiling as a first-round candidate.
We’ve also seen this film before, a senior quarterback with a late-career breakout once they’ve developed as a player. Kenny Pickett did this with Pittsburgh. Bo Nix did it at Oregon the past two seasons. In a sport where the entire foundation is that everyone is gaining experience rather than showcasing it, a seasoned player can do some true damage once it all slows down. That especially applies when said quarterback has a receiving room like Rome Odunze, Ja’Lynn Polk, and Jalen McMillan, all of whom have NFL futures.
Penix isn’t your average quarterback who is just better than everyone else because he’s 23. We’re learning more and more about what makes quarterbacks good prospects and good NFL quarterbacks, and the Washington quarterback checks some big boxes.
For one thing, Penix is a wizard within the pocket. No quarterback has exemplified this in the NFL more than Kansas City‘s Patrick Mahomes, but one of the most valuable skills a modern passer can have is avoiding sacks. No one can quite extend plays like the guy on the Chiefs, but avoiding negative plays and turning sacks into throwaways or even completions can save possessions. Penix’s 8.0% pressure-to-sack ratio is the fourth-best among any Power 5 quarterback, a talent on full display against Texas. He’s not particularly speedy or mobile, but he seems to have an almost supernatural sense of how to angle himself away from an oncoming pass rusher to buy an extra second to avoid a big loss.
Over Washington’s past two games, Penix has been pressured on 29 of his 80 dropbacks. He’s only been sacked twice. Longhorns pressured Penix 16 times in Monday’s semifinal and they never got him to the ground. He’s thrown for 1,014 and averaged 8.3 yards per attempt under pressure this season.
Penix is also one of the most precise downfield passers in the nation. PFF awarded him a passing grade above 90 on both intermediate and deep throws, and the site credited him with 40 big-time throws and seven turnover-worthy plays on passes 10 or more yards downfield. He ended the season with a 56.4% completion percentage, an average of 13.6 yards per attempt, 27 touchdowns, and nine interceptions on those passes. Even with the eye test, his downfield passes hum with an easy velocity and he finds tight windows routinely.
Penix’s injury history will likely prevent him from clambering into the upper tier of NFL Draft picks this upcoming season, but there’s a safe argument to make that he has the highest floor of any quarterback prospect in the class. Personally, I think he should be firmly in the mix to be the third or fourth quarterback selected in the draft with LSU’s Jayden Daniels.
It remains to be seen what NFL scouts make of that debate, but one more exceptional game against Michigan could vault him into conversations no one expected at the start of the season.