With a crowd of no more than 200 people looking on, there were a lot of things to be excited about from Washington’s open practice on Saturday. While it wasn’t necessarily the best day for the quarterbacks overall, it seems that Indiana graduate transfer Michael Penix Jr. should be considered the favorite for the starting job as of right now. Towards the end of the day, he made two great touchdown throws in 11 on 11 drills to Giles Jackson. The second was a back-shoulder throw between two defenders, and Jackson made a spectacular catch in the right corner of the end zone.
Speaking of receivers, it’s certainly going to be a huge year for sophomore receiver Jalen McMillan. Early on in 11 on 11’s, he made a play in what appeared to be a mesh concept, where he ran a 10-yard curl, found a soft spot in the zone, and outran the defense for a touchdown. He lined up in the slot at numerous different points on Saturday, and that looks like a major matchup advantage for the Washington offense.
The defensive line did exactly what Kalen DeBoer said they’d been doing all spring, wreaking havoc in the pocket. For the second straight day, Jeremiah Martin got pressure in the backfield with a very impressive bull rush, only today it was on Matteo Mele. But he wasn’t the only one, Bralen Trice also had an excellent rep on right tackle Roger Rosengarten, and it appeared he was credited with a sack on the play. Note: it was hard to tell when and where sacks were credited, because there were multiple points when a quarterback was touched in the backfield, but the offense was allowed to finish the play.
One of those sacks came from Dominique Hampton at the Husky position. He came off the edge like a missile and got a hand on Dylan Morris before anyone on the offensive line could even get a hand on him. It also seems like it should be noted that the Husky position seemed to be calling the plays for the defense. Julius Irvin also recorded an interception of Sam Huard, and even though Jordan Perryman didn’t participate in the 11 on 11 portions of practice, it looks like the Husky defensive backs are still going to be very tough to complete a pass on.
Finally, Kalen DeBoer said on Friday that he wants to make sure the running backs are more involved in the passing game, and they were very involved on Saturday. Notably, the wheel route, something Husky fans haven’t seen involved in the offense in a very long time, which isn’t shocking, because John Donovan’s offense was created before the invention of the wheel.
There’s a lot to be excited about with this coaching staff and their scheme. They seem to be set up to succeed on the field, and now the question is, can they recruit? I’ll leave you with this quick note after the staff introduced all the high school recruits to the team, wide receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard took the receiver recruit he introduced off to the side and immediately started working on his releases against press coverage.
