This team was 3-3 before they quit last year. With Jimmy. With Donovan. With Gregory. With Morris as a starter. If Penix goes down tomorrow the Huskies probably go 6-3 or 5-4. ASU and Colorado are awful. WSU and OSU are much less talented than UW. Bay Area schools would be a toss up and UCLA and Oregon would be tall orders. These are good coaches. These kids are bought in. We probably don’t play for the conference title but we certainly don’t fall off a cliff. 10-2 with a healthy Penix and 9-3 or 8-4 without him. This conference is twash. Remember that.
Adding to this, any team outside the top four nationally is at least two games worse for losing a starting QB. Most, not UW IMHO, are much worse than that. USC and UW (scheme), UCLA (Garbers) and maybe Utah (culture) are probably the only three teams that could withstand a QB loss without absolutely cratering in the P12.