‘I’m trusting, believing in him’: ASU, quarterback Cutter Boley dominate Morgan State in football season opener
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TEMPE – Throwing for 387 yards and six touchdowns is not a bad tally for a quarterback over a two-game span. It’s stellar over the course of one game.
To put up those numbers in just over one half of a football game? That was good enough to give Cutter Boley the best stats of any Arizona State quarterback making his first start.
After transferring to ASU from Kentucky where he posted 2,498 yards and 17 touchdowns over a span of 15 games, the junior quarterback earned the starting job for the 2026 season by impressing the Sun Devils coaching staff in spring ball and fall camp.
Boley continued to impress the staff, as well as a sellout crowd of 54,004 at Mountain America Stadium, in a 70-7 rout of Morgan State on Saturday.
The domination was so impressive, both coaches agreed to shorten the fourth quarter to 10 minutes instead of 15. The NCAA rulebook states that “any time during the game, the playing time of any remaining period or periods may be shortened by mutual agreement of the opposing head coaches and the referee.”
Boley was replaced early in the third quarter by backup Mikey Keene and then Jake Fette.
“He’s a worker,” coach Kenny Dillingham said of Boley. “He loves ball. He went out there today and executed the plan, which is what I love to see.”
As the Sun Devils took the field, fans and analysts were still wondering if Boley would live up to the hype he received as the 15th-ranked transfer quarterback in the country.
Any fears about his readiness to perform in Tempe were put to bed early. After senior running back Kyson Brown broke off a 46-yard rushing touchdown on ASU’s first drive, Boley showed off his arm on the Sun Devils’ second drive.He threw 29- and 10-yard passes to fellow transfer seniors Reed Harris and Omarion Miller, the second of which gave ASU a 14-0 lead.
His next time out, Boley displayed perhaps the biggest concern from his time at Kentucky where he threw 16 interceptions and fumbled five times. Boley fumbled on ASU’s third drive against the Bears, and he did not ease the turnover concerns on the next drive. With ASU just 25 yards from the end zone, Boley unnecessarily extended a play by scrambling around the backfield and throwing up a pass that was initially ruled an interception.
After watching one of his mistakes nearly lead to serious consequences, Boley turned self-reflective.
“Ball security is really important,” the Hodgenville, Kentucky, native said. “That was a mistake I had in the first quarter. I learned from that and tried to bounce back, tried to have that next-play mentality. That’s something we grow and learn from.”
After the interception was overturned, Boley quickly put his mistakes in the rearview mirror, throwing a touchdown on the next play.
Boley and the offense scored on every successive drive until Dillingham pulled him after his first series of the second half, with the win already secured.
In his first action in Tempe, Boley spread the love around, completing passes to nine players.
“That speaks for the culture coach Dillingham has built around here,” Boley said. “Everybody around this team just loves football. They love being here. They love competing. They love working every day. It’s super inspiring as a quarterback.”
As he trotted to the sideline after his final drive, Boley had thrown for the most yards and touchdowns by any ASU quarterback making his first start.
While his impressive stat line earned the quarterback praise, Boley deferred to the team around him.
“These guys aren’t hard guys to get motivated, get fired up,” he said. “They love playing football. It’s fun when you play with a bunch of guys who really love and care about the game.”
As Boley dished praise to his teammates – an easy task considering his defense allowed just 188 yards and his offensive line allowed only two sacks – Dillingham stepped in to give his quarterback the credit he deserved after an impressive debut.
“He played really, really well,” Dillingham said. “He controlled the game. He made some really nice checks that became explosive plays, some touchdowns. I was really happy with that.”
Although Dillingham credited Boley, the quarterback raised a valid point by praising the weapons around him. Eight different players recorded touchdowns against the Bears, with three players recording more than 100 yards from scrimmage.
Two of those, Miller and Harris, were expected to fill up the stat sheet as Sun Devils. The third, sophomore running back Grayson Rigdon, was more of a surprise.
Rigdon had 132 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns in his first game seeing extended action. But like his coach, the running back credited the man under center.
“He’s a great leader,” Rigdon said of Boley. “He takes pride in running the offense. I’m trusting, believing in him. He’s going put me in the right situation every time.”
ASU now looks ahead to a daunting road matchup against No. 8 Texas A&M on Saturday at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas.
With a team on the horizon that made the College Football Playoff in 2025 – a team that spent its first week taking down Missouri State 50-0 – Dillingham wanted to see a big performance from his team.
Despite the scoreline against Morgan State, he still wants more as a trip to face an SEC power looms.
“Our challenge to our guys was to play our best game and we didn’t do that,” Dillingham said. “We played a good game at times, but there are still too many things that we can improve upon. We have to keep getting better every single week.”
This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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