Hello to all the degenerate Cal fans still reading these articles. Prior to the season, I knew Cal was going to have to steal a game or two as an underdog in order to make a bowl game, and I figured UW would be Cal’s best chance (at least relative to Oregon, USC, and UCLA; all of whom pose difficult matchup challenges even for a Cal team playing up to expectations).

After last week’s embarrassing loss to Colorado, I’m not all that confident in that prediction anymore.

UW is a very pass-heavy team that will rely on some extremely talented receivers. They’re actually the #1 passing offense in the country with 380.0 passing yards per game, and last week they outdueled the the Pac-12’s #2 passing offense (Arizona, #9 in the FBS with 334.4 passing yards per game). So think back to Cal’s struggles covering Arizona’s receivers, and now realize it’ll likely be even tougher with Cal’s secondary a bit banged up this week. On a small positive note for Cal, at least their transfer quarterback isn’t another Houdini in the pocket.

Quarterback

The big story for Washington this year was the arrival of Indiana transfer QB Michael Penix Jr. This season, Penix has already played more games (7) than he has in any prior season. Penix has had the worst injury luck: a torn ACL in 2018, a a sternoclavicular joint injury in 2019, another torn ACL in 2020, and an AC joint shoulder injury in 2021. It turns out that knees and shoulders are pretty important for football, and yet they’re some of the most finicky parts of the human body.

Penix has enough mobility to be a dual-threat, but he (understandably) has no interest in getting hit, and will quickly slide when scrambling. Hence, he does prefer to stand in the pocket and make throws. The threat of the run, however, is enough that defenses need to take note.

Penix is an accurate passer, running an offense designed to stretch the field and hit his receivers in space. I do think he was generating a bit too much media hype as UW climbed to a 4-0 start against what we now know are generally bad teams (2-5 Kent State, a 3-4 Michigan State team that sported a #11 ranking at the time, a 2-4 FCS school, Stanford, etc). That said, it’s easy to see why people were getting excited with the types of throws he showed he was capable of making:

Penix is able to generate power without really using full-body mechanics:

Although he has some nice upper body strength, his weird throwing mechanics are generally considered a knock against him, as he’s not really reaching his full potential.

UW will use play-action, jet sweeps, and spread the field with their receivers’ routes, looking for holes in the defense for an explosive play. A lot of these types of throws rely on timing, something Penix showed control over since their very first game:

Although Penix does not want to be taking hits—and his offensive line has done very well protecting him, allowing just 5 sacks in 7 games, good for top 10 in the FBS—he’s still able to make nice throws even when he can’t get his entire body into the throw, showing some toughness here:

Conversely, however, the inconsistent throwing mechanics also result in some misses:

Although UW has a very good offensive line, I think Penix’s clear Achilles heel is the way his throwing mechanics break down under pressure:

Again under pressure, he often misses high and away:

His other big weakness is that he often seems to have determined his throws pre-snap, which leads to him staring down receivers for turnover-worthy plays:

Here he again stares down his receiver:

And on the following play, it looks like Penix has made his read pre-snap, staring down his receiver thinking that the linebacker will be held by the flat route, but he turns back inside for the interception (likely because he saw where Penix was staring):

So although Penix is a talented quarterback, he’s probably what the NFL would consider a “project” QB, where a team might take a late round flyer on him.

Running back

Despite having some talented players, the UW run game has been underwhelming this year. As I briefly mentioned earlier, it feels to me like UW is mainly just using the run game to set up the pass— run the ball, run the ball, then play action, etc. Even though I’ve been pretty high on some of these very same running backs in the past (Cameron Davis, Richard Newton), I only found myself taking one highlight clip of a running back through 7 games (the Cameron Davis clip below). UW has been relying on a committee of running backs, and has really spread the ball around this year: Wayne Taulapapa, Cameron Davis, Richard Newton, Will Nixon, Sam Adams, and even Jackson Sirmon’s younger cousin Camden Sirmon has gotten a few touches.

A plurality of the carries have gone to Virginia grad transfer Wayne Taulapapa. There’s really nothing that jumps out to me about him, other than he’s usually running through pretty big holes opened up by the offensive line:

(In hindsight, I probably should have created an offensive line highlight section instead, with Henry Bainivalu and Jaxson Kirkland having the potential to become later round NFL picks).

Here’s RB Cameron Davis, on the one play where I felt the running back created his own yards:

Richard Newton shows some nice patience on a run:

I could tell you that UW’s running back is 6’0” and 210 lbs., and at most I’d be 1 inch and a couple pounds off. They’ve been used fairly interchangeably.

Will Nixon is the exception; officially listed as a “RB/WR”, he is at least marginally more likely to run a route out of the backfield than stay in protection.

Receivers

The receiving corps is the real strength of this offense, and the primary reason UW is putting up 42.1 points per game. UW’s receivers are tall, rangy, and very fast. Rome Odunze, for instance, was the Nevada state champion in the 200m and 4th in the state in the 100m dash. Jalen McMillan posted similar track times in California. I can’t find Ja’Lynn Polk’s high school track times, but if he did run track, I would guess he was also pretty fast.

The concerning thing to me, though, was what I saw right after I looked up their high school track times: I looked up former UW receiver John Ross’s high school track times. UW’s receivers are just as fast as NFL 1st round speedster John Ross (and we’re not going to talk about what John Ross did to Sonny Dykes’ defenses).

And now they have 3 of them!

The speed of UW’s receivers puts opposing corners in a bind: you either play off them and give up the short throws, or you risk them beating you deep for a huge play, likely a touchdown. Perhaps bigger, physical corners could jam them at the line, but the UW offensive line is going to give QB Michael Penix Jr plenty of time to let plays develop, and will draw up plays to get them in open space (e.g. man in motion running a route out of the backfield, etc).

Let’s start with Rome Odunze, since he’s probably the most polished of the bunch. Odunze is a very crisp route runner:

Even with a shortened field, he can make space for himself:

Concerningly, he also has the size and frame to make catches in close quarters, on the rare occasions where a defender is near him:

Next we have Jalen McMillan. In the following clip, you have a corner who was foolish enough to have a footrace with McMillan:

UW’s receivers have the speed to immediately punish the smallest mistake. Look how quickly McMillan finds himself in his own zip code, and how powerless the safeties are to stop him:

McMillan can quickly change direction:

And he even has some nice run after the catch ability:

Finally, we have Ja’Lynn Polk. Polk is a big, lumbering, … no, I’m just kidding. He’s also stupid fast:

In the following play, MSU gives the UW speedsters a huge cushion, but still can’t keep pace with Polk after he’s reached top speed:

When the UW offense isn’t launching bombs to wide receivers open deep, they’ll probably look either to a tight end or a checkdown to a running back. The tight end Devin Culp is a solid blocker in the run and pass game, but he probably isn’t catching the ball at as high of a level as you’d like. Culp can run a nice route:

But Culp’s biggest weakness is his stone hands. I don’t know why, but he routinely drops easy catches:

I’m a bigger believer in the backup tight end, Jack Westover. Westover is a much better receiving threat, has sure hands, and is frequently used on plays where the tight end leaks out as a passing option for short catch and runs:

I also liked the freshman receiver, Lonyatta Alexander. He’s not the burner that the rest of the receivers are, but he does a good job of making catches in traffic:

Lastly, not featured above is the receiver Giles Jackson. Jackson is only 5’9” (compared to the rest of the UW receivers on the depth chart, who are all above 6 feet), but he’s still fast, and so he’s most often used on jet sweeps and on special teams.

Conclusion

Weird piece of trivia you’re sure to hear Saturday: UW has scored a touchdown on each of their opening drives through their first 7 games. Will UW continue that streak on the opening drive against Cal? Probably.

While I think Cal will be able to bring exotic blitzes to keep QB Michael Penix Jr uncomfortable (although I doubt Cal will get many sacks, I think even simulated pressure may be effective), I think that UW simply has too many speedy receivers to cover. I could see Cal game-planning to take away one top receiver (like Odunze), but UW will simply find a different cornerback to pick on for explosive plays. The Cal defense may be able to coerce Penix into a turnover or two, but I just can’t picture the offense having the horsepower to keep up with the UW offense even with a couple extra possessions. I struggle to have any faith in an offense that thought it would be a better idea to have a banged-up quarterback throw deep hole shots all game than to run the ball with one of the best running backs in the country against one of the worst run defenses in the country. The UW offense can be slowed, not stopped. The Cal offense will be lucky if it can get moving.

😔 Go Bears. 😔

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