(Photo: Connor Gleason/WCSN)
TEMPE – Third-year quarterback Cutter Boley will be Arizona State football’s starter going into the 2026 season, head coach Kenny Dillingham confirmed following Saturday’s practice. The decision comes one week before the Sun Devils’ home opener against Morgan State on Sept. 5.
The news was originally reported by ESPN reporter Pete Thamel before practice began Saturday morning.
Boley spent the past two seasons at Kentucky before transferring to ASU in January. In 15 games, he threw for 2,498 yards, 17 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. The 2025 season in particular saw the pro-style passer earn SEC All-Freshman honors and complete 65.8% of his passes, setting the program freshman record as a redshirt.
Throughout fall camp, Boley battled with sixth-year QB Mikey Keene for the starting job. Despite some bumps in the road in terms of consistency, he still remained at the helm of the first-string offense in the weeks leading up to the decision.
Boley’s strong arm talent, ability to escape pressure and growth in areas such as cutting back on turnovers ultimately helped him secure a spot at the top of the depth chart.
“We felt like he had a great camp, did a good job (of) taking care of the football,” Dillingham said. “We think Cutter is the best opportunity for us to go win football games. We feel like he deserves it and he won.”
The Kentucky native has also impressed his teammates and coaches with his attributes as a leader. He joins former Sun Devil quarterback Sam Leavitt in being named the starting quarterback and a member of the Pat Tillman Leadership Council in his first season within the program.
“He’s positive, he’s charismatic, he takes the blame,” Dillingham said. “There’s a bunch of ways you can lead people. There’s not a right way, there’s not a wrong way. There’s just your own way.”
On the other hand, Keene is the leading candidate to be the backup behind Boley. The Chandler native returned to his home state after serving a similar role at Michigan in 2025, in which he did not take the field during the season. Prior to his time in Ann Arbor, he threw for 8,245 yards, 65 touchdowns and 28 interceptions over four seasons for both UCF and Fresno State.
Keene was also added to the Pat Tillman Leadership Council in early August.
“Mikey’s an unbelievable person, an unbelievable leader,” Dillingham said. “Mikey’s a leader on this football team and we’re going to need Mikey throughout the entire season on-and-off the field in all facets.”
Second-year Cameron Dyer and first-year Jake Fette round out the Sun Devils’ quarterback room with no in-game experience at the collegiate level but plenty of intriguing upside.
Dyer, a former four-star prospect out of New Mexico, served as the team’s backup behind Jeff Sims during the second half of the 2025 season. Fette walked into Tempe in the spring as the No. 11 quarterback recruit in the country and flashed enough potential to be one of six freshmen who were not named to the scout team.
“We felt like there (were) a lot of guys who had a good camp,” Dillingham said. “We feel really good about Mikey, we feel good about Cam, we feel really good about Jake. We feel good about that room. We thought they all got better.”
Despite the announcement about ASU’s starting quarterback coming closer to the team’s season opener than it has before in the Dillingham era, the coach indicated that there was no internal pressure about the decision.
“To be honest, I didn’t really care to name one,” Dillingham said. “I know it was probably wildly anticipated, but we were just operating. It wasn’t really on my mind that it was a big deal. We were operating how we operated.”
