After strong showing vs. Murray State, should Cutter Boley start for Kentucky at Texas?
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Game day: Kentucky 48, Murray State 6
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Murray State football game at Kroger Field.
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After more than a week of speculation about freshman Cutter Boley possibly starting at quarterback for Kentucky football against Murray State, on Thursday coach Mark Stoops made it clear there was no quarterback controversy in his locker room.
Two days later after a 48-6 blowout of the FCS Racers, he might have one.
In his final pregame interview session of the week Stoops announced normal starter Brock Vandagriff was expected to be available for the game after suffering a head injury two weeks earlier at Tennessee. As long as he was cleared by doctors, Vandagriff would start as normal. But Stoops was open about hoping Boley would have a chance to play as well.
Vandagriff was officially cleared to play on Friday afternoon. He made his 10th start as a Wildcat against Murray State and completed 12 of 19 passes for 183 yards, two touchdowns and one interception before Boley took the reins of the offense on the first possession of the second half.
Boley, the former four-star recruit from Lexington Christian Academy, quickly erased the bad taste from his 0-for-6 showing in his only previous appearance of the season late in the loss at Florida by completing 10 of 14 passes for 130 yards and two touchdowns. Kentucky scored on each of his four drives.
“Every day in our building we have to evaluate every player,” Stoops said after the victory when asked what he would say to anyone who felt Boley should now play in the final two games of the regular season. “But I have so much respect and admiration for Brock and what he’s done.
“The fact that he got out there and played, what he went through to get cleared and go play that game says a lot about him. But, yeah, we evaluate things all the time and we talked about after the bye, coming back, regrouping and really trying to finish this last third of the season. We have a big one next week. Another great opportunity.”
That comment will not do much to end calls for a quarterback change, but the decision of who starts at No. 3 Texas next week might have more to do with Vandagriff’s health than anything else.
Two of Vandagriff’s first three passes — both deep throws down the left sideline to Hardley Gilmore — were so badly underthrown that one had to wonder if something physical was holding Vandagriff back. UK was not punished for the first mistake when the ball bounced off the hands of a Murray State defender and into Gilmore’s arms as he ran into the end zone for a touchdown, but the second miscue was intercepted.
Vandagriff rallied to make multiple impressive throws over the middle, including one into tight coverage in the end zone for a second-quarter touchdown pass to Ja’Mori Maclin, but he was not tested on the deep post again.
“We’re gonna have to look at it,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said. “I mean, we know Brock’s a warrior. It’s been back and forth this week with him trying to do everything he could to get himself ready to play. Everything this team wants to be he certainly is.
“And I commend Cutter because it wasn’t a situation where he was out there taking every rep this week as well. And so for both those guys to come out there, some good positives.”
With Vandagriff unavailable, Boley was able to take most of the first-team reps during UK’s bye week. That preparation represented a vast difference from his first appearance at Florida when he was thrown into action with the outcome already decided after taking few first- or second-team reps the week before.
Boley threw a pick six on his first pass attempt at Florida and finished the night without a completion, but coaches said there was no worry about that experience rattling him because of his personality.
Playing against lesser competition Saturday, he certainly looked the part. Boley completed both of his passes on his first drive, which ended in a 4-yard Jamarion Wilcox touchdown run.
He threw touchdown passes on his third and fourth drives. His only drive that did not reach the end zone still featured an impressive moment where he kept the final third down alive long enough to find an open Fred Farrier in the end zone but threw the ball slightly too hard for Farrier to come down in bounds.
“I liked just everything about it,” Stoops said of Boley’s performance. “Just the poise that he had. Obviously, nothing rattled him at all. He was very patient in the pocket. I thought he moved when he had to. Threw the ball very well and made good decisions. So, yeah, definitely very excited.”
Boley, known as a traditional pocket passer, even showed off surprising mobility with a 30-yard run. His ability to calmly progress through multiple options to find the open receiver and his quick release were also worthy of praise.
Of course, the caveat in Boley’s performance has to be the level of competition.
Murray State fell to 1-10 on the season with the loss and has now been outscored 99-6 in its two games against FBS foes this season. Boley was playing with a host of UK backups but also against players down the Murray State depth chart with the game out of hand.
“I don’t think you can go much down from what I did at Florida,” Boley said. “So it was nice to come out here and just kind of be confident and let it rip. I had nothing to lose.”
The fact that Boley did play at Florida at least offers some experience that could be useful in front of what will surely be a hostile crowd in Austin, Texas, next week, but especially behind an offensive line that has struggled in pass protection for much of the season it is unlikely Boley will have anywhere close to the same amount of time to throw against Texas as he did against Murray State.
Kentucky must win at Texas and against Louisville in the regular-season finale to extend its eight-year bowl streak. That prospect already looks remote, but with postseason play technically still possible can Stoops and Hamdan afford to start Boley at Texas considering how he looked in his only SEC experience to date?
Texas is 9-1 but has not beaten a team currently ranked in the AP Top 25. The Longhorns were held to just 20 points in a closer-than-expected win against Arkansas on Saturday.
Kentucky’s best hope appears be duplicating the performances in the win at Ole Miss and close losses to Georgia and Tennessee that relied heavily on a strong defensive performance and controlling the clock to limit possessions. Vandagriff would seem like the safer choice for that game plan, but avoiding offensive mistakes is key in that scenario and at this point it is no sure thing that Vandagriff is any less turnover prone than Boley. Vandagriff was already benched for performance once this season in the second half of the loss to Auburn, but coaches were pleased with the progress he showed in the first half at Tennessee before suffering the head injury.
With only two games left in the regular season, preserving Boley’s redshirt is no longer a worry. Even if he plays against Texas and Louisville he will finish the season within the four-game threshold needed to keep the year of eligibility.
“I’m trying to keep my same mindset I’ve had all year, just get better every day and continue to put in the work and be ready when my name is called,” Boley said. “I think I got to learn from Brock and Gavin (Wimsatt) a lot this year, and I’m gonna continue to do so throughout these next two weeks, and continue to get better and continue to improve myself for the future of this program.”
At the very least, Boley reasserted himself as the quarterback of the future for Kentucky on Saturday.
Now the question is whether he should be the quarterback of the present, too.
“It’s a great opportunity for him,” Hamdan said. “You never know right in that kind of stage, when you have quarterback, how he’s going to really respond. He looked really good today. He really did. And so I think that’s a huge bonus for us.”
This story was originally published November 17, 2024 at 6:30 AM.
