The No. 3 Washington Huskies stamped their ticket to the College Football Playoff (CFP) by stunning the No. 5 Oregon Ducks. It was a game worthy of being the last-ever for the legendary Pac-12 conference. The Huskies, led by Heisman candidate Michael Penix Jr., got off to an early 20-3 lead and completely defied the spread that had the Huskies as 9.5-point underdogs. However, the Ducks were far from dead. An Oregon touchdown late in the first half would cut the deficit to 10. Oregon would follow that up with another TD to open the second half and then another to take a 24-20 lead with around two minutes left in the third quarter.
A rare interception from Oregon QB Bo Nix in the third robbed the Ducks of much of their momentum. This was when Penix showed his Heisman pedigree. He engineered two back-to-back touchdown drives, with multiple big-yardage plays on each, and remained calm and collected the whole time. The Ducks scored again with two minutes remaining in the fourth and could have forced another possession with a stop. However, they couldn’t impede the Huskies, and the clock slowly ran out on the Pac-12 and the Ducks’ CFP hopes.
Michael Penix Jr. and Dillon Johnson were the clear MVPs for Washington.
“It is sad to see it happen and that be the last football game there,” Washington coach Kalen DeBoer said. “But I think the other part is just understanding how strong the conference was this year.
“There were eight teams [from the Pac-12] at one point, I believe, that were ranked in the Top 25, and we played the best ones and we played one of them twice. I don’t think there’s anyone else in the country that’s gone through what we went through.”
Photo Cred: OU
Johnson rushed for 152 yards and two touchdowns, while Penix threw for an impressive 319 yards and a touchdown. This performance will likely earn Penix a Heisman finalist nod. Two Washington receivers, Jalen McMillan and Rome Odunze, also ended the game with triple-digit receiving yards. Oregon’s Bo Nix passed for 239 yards and three touchdowns, adding 69 rushing yards as well. Although listed as the Heisman favorite by the FanDuel Sportsbook before the game, the loss and Nix’s late interception likely knocked him out of the running for good.
