Cutter Boley’s growth is bright spot for UK, but should he have started earlier?

If there has been a glimmer of hope for Kentucky football during its four-game losing streak, it has been the progression of redshirt freshman quarterback Cutter Boley.

In the span of a month, Boley has gone from a player who looked overmatched and in danger of returning to the bench in his first SEC start at South Carolina to becoming the first Kentucky quarterback to throw for five touchdowns in a game in almost 20 years.

But even that progress comes with a question — and possibly a criticism — for Kentucky’s beleaguered coaching staff.

Should Mark Stoops and offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan have just handed Boley the reins of the offense from day one this season?

“I don’t think that’s fair to say that to Zach (Calzada) and to others,” Stoops said Wednesday when asked by the Herald-Leader if he had any regrets about Kentucky’s offseason quarterback decisions. “I mean, listen, it’s never on one guy. I know you’ve heard me say that many times, and it’s true. I think we’ve grown. I think it’s fair when you struggle that you all share in that. Us, me as the head coach. It’s play-calling, protection, catching the ball, you name it. There’s a lot that goes into it.

“I’m very happy that Cutter is progressing the way he is. And I think what’s really impressive about Cutter is that each game, each start, he seems to be getting better and better. And you love that, but you have no way of knowing what’s going to happen in the future.”

In fairness to Stoops, even though Boley showed promise in a late-season cameo while redshirting last year, the offense did not score a touchdown on any of his 10 drives against power-conference competition, and he ended the year with a poor performance in his first start against Louisville. It would have been irresponsible for the staff to assume Boley would be ready to start as a redshirt freshman, especially in a year when there was more pressure than ever on Stoops to win.

Kentucky did not shop at the top of the transfer quarterback market last winter but clearly prioritized adding a veteran to at least compete with Boley after 2024 starter Brock Vandagriff retired and top backup Gavin Wimsatt transferred. UK hosted former Duke quarterback Malik Murphy for a visit before landing a commitment from Calzada, who started his career at Texas A&M and had spent the past two seasons at FCS Incarnate Word.

Calzada appeared uncomfortable any time he was asked in interviews about expectations for his final college season after arriving at Kentucky in January, apparently not wanting to give the impression he had been guaranteed a starting job. But it was clear that, as a seventh-year senior, he had picked a program where he anticipated playing. Stoops spent much of the last week of preseason camp hyping Boley but named Calzada the starter, as expected, the Monday before UK’s season opener.

Calzada struggled while starting the first two games. He was sidelined late in the Week 2 loss to Ole Miss by an injury to his throwing shoulder. Boley has started every game since.

“When you’ve battled with a guy like Cutter for 16 months and poured a lot and seen his growth, for him to go out there and just play, in my opinion, older than maybe his age, yeah, it feels good,” Hamdan said this week.

Boley impressed in his first start of the season against Eastern Michigan but struggled in the next game at South Carolina, completing only 52.6% of his passes for 124 yards with two turnovers that were returned for touchdowns. He was sacked six times in the game, with several of those sacks coming when he held onto the ball too long.

In the three games since South Carolina, Kentucky has tweaked its offense to prioritize getting the ball out of Boley’s hands more quickly. He has attempted at least 35 passes in each of the past three games, but the majority of those throws have been of the short and intermediate variety.

Boley completed 79.5% of his passes in the overtime loss to Texas. He threw for 330 yards, five touchdowns and one interception in the loss to Tennessee.

“I think I’m just doing a better and better job each week of being able to diagnose what defenses are doing,” Boley said. “Throughout the week, like here in the facility, when we’re studying our opponents, I’m doing a better and better job of learning how to watch film and just kind of understand what the defense is doing and what we go into the game expecting.”

Would Kentucky’s season have gone any differently if Boley had started that progression in week one, rather than week three? Maybe not.

Kentucky lost by just seven in week two against Ole Miss, but given how Boley struggled in his first SEC start at South Carolina, it would be impossible to assume he would have performed better than Calzada did that week, even if he had a chance to build some momentum in the opener against Toledo.

Maybe Boley would have been better prepared by the time Kentucky traveled to South Carolina if he had started the first three games, but the bigger question is whether Kentucky would have made the same tweaks to the offense it has made in the past three games earlier in the year in that scenario.

The decision to pursue Calzada as the likely starter in December undoubtedly had a trickle-down effect on the rest of Kentucky’s roster, though.

While Calzada did not command the same NIL investment that top quarterbacks in the transfer portal did, he is still one of the highest earners on UK’s roster.

Stoops praised UK’s NIL situation entering the offseason, but even with the class signed before the limitations on NIL deals went into effect with the advent of revenue sharing, the budget was not endless. Had Kentucky decided to build around Boley and pursue a likely backup quarterback in the portal, some of the NIL money given to Calzada could have been allocated elsewhere.

“I think you can see — I hope you can, and everybody can see — we are most definitely better in certain areas,” Stoops said of his 2025 roster. “I understand we’re not complete. You look at our record, I’m not naive to that, but we are definitely better and making strides and (the NIL investment) definitely helped. We’re far better, although the record may not indicate that.”

Whether Stoops returns as Kentucky’s coach next season or not, the roster will need more transfer reinforcements. The Wildcats probably need to add probable starters at offensive tackle, inside linebacker, wide receiver and running back as well as depth pieces at several other positions, if all the players with remaining eligibility on the two-deep return. Young players like Boley who have blossomed into featured roles will surely require larger revenue-sharing contracts to stay too.

With the roster budget changing this winter, being more reliant on revenue sharing than outside NIL collective deals, there may not be many lessons to take from last year’s successes and failures.

But the way Kentucky’s quarterback situation has played out is a reminder that whatever budget is available has to be distributed to contributors on the field for the Wildcats to have a chance in the current college landscape.

“You see the progress, you see the young guys, and so we did as good as we could,” Stoops said. “Definitely, for this last year this team had more resources. I’m grateful for it. I wish that the results would be better, but I know we are better.

“But you’re not going to do it in one year either. You have to build a roster over the course of at least two, three (years). Yes, you look at it every year and evaluate it every year, and you hopefully just patch a couple holes. You don’t have to patch all of the holes.”

This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 5:45 AM.

Jon Hale

Lexington Herald-Leader

(859) 414-6776

Jon Hale is the University of Kentucky football beat writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He joined the Herald-Leader in 2022 but has covered UK athletics for more than 10 years. Hale was named the 2021 Kentucky Sportswriter of the Year. Support my work with a digital subscription