SEATTLE – As fans fueled up the Husky defense to give Michael Penix Jr. one more drive Friday night, the southpaw sat with his go-to target, Rome Odunze, to his left on the bench behind a wall of his teammates.
Washington (7-2, 4-2) took possession at its own 3-yard line with 4:33 on the clock needing only a field goal to beat Oregon State. As the offense took the field there was a unanimous sense that Penix and Co. would get the job done.
“We know that nobody can stop us. That’s how we feel. Our offense, we feel like nobody in the country can stop us,” Penix said. “When we got the ball with like 4:35 left, man, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind in that huddle that we weren’t going to go down there and put some points on the board.”
Penix hit on all three of his third-down attempts on drive, each to a different receiver.
Sophomore running back Cameron Davis secured the final third-down conversion by laying out to haul in a wheel route on 3rd and 6. It was the exact same route design that earlier in the game he dropped which forced UW to punt.
“That was the biggest play (of the drive),” Penix said after the game of Davis’ catch.
The defense they messed up – I don’t know what they were doing. They messed up and left him out there. I wish it was a better throw, but I was just trying to get it to him as fast as I could. Cam is a dawg. That boy, he comes to practice every day, so I know he’s gonna make plays like that in the game. I just have to put it in the vicinity and he’ll go get it.”
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Giles Jackson made the final play, a 12-yard catch, to put the ball at the OSU 2-yard line with :24 seconds left. Before the game UW head coach Kalen DeBoer felt comfortable kicking if it was inside the 20-yard line.
“It’s really hard for me to not try to score a touchdown,” DeBoer said.”I really feel – that’s the first time I’ve ever done that where we intentionally center it to win a game. Never done that.
“Did feel, with the wind and how close we were, it was pretty much an extra point. If we did score just wanted to make sure we gave Peyton the best chance possible to give him a successful opportunity. I just always feel like they have to respond to a touchdown if we score it. It was so late in the last minute that it was going to be hard for them.”
The Beavers (6-3, 4-3) took the field with :08 seconds and no timeouts left and didn’t have a rabbit to pull out as the clock struck triple zero.
“These are the games – we’ve been talking about it all week – just November and how crucial of a month that is,” Odunze said. “For the team to come together and do what we did is definitely going to propel us forward.”
Odunze, who added a pair of catches for 17 yards on the final series, finished the game with a team-high 102 yards receiving on seven catches for his fifth 100-yard game this season.
He now sits two behind former receiver Reggie Williams who holds the school record for most 100-yard receiving games in a season with seven back in 2002. Though the sophomore didn’t add a touchdown reception to his numbers another Husky did haul in his first of the season.
Junior tight end Jack Westover caught the only touchdown pass of the game from Penix, a 24-yard catch with no OSU defender near him, to tie the game at 14 with 6:47 left in the third.
Penix finished two yards shy of the 300 mark for the first time all season against the Beavers. He completed 30 of 52 attempts for 298 yard and threw a costly pick-six that gave OSU a 14-7 lead just before halftime.
