Coach Will Stein talked with quarterback Cutter Boley after his first team meeting as UK's new coach. (UK Athletics Photo)
Kentucky fans rejoiced when Lexington Christian quarterback Cutter Boley picked Kentucky over Florida State, Michigan, Penn State and many others two years ago.
Former Kentucky coach Mark Stoops called Boley the “future of UK football” on numerous occasions and believed UK had found a quarterback to develop rather than have to look in the transfer portal almost every year for a quarterback.
Boley, a five-star prospect, thought Liam Coen would be his offensive coordinator at Kentucky when he signed with the Cats. Instead, Coen left for the NFL and is now head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Stoops brought in Bush Hamden as offensive coordinator and UK went 4-8 and 5-7 the last two seasons.
New Kentucky coach Matt Stein recruited Boley for Oregon where he was offensive coordinator. New UK offensive coordinator Joe Sloan recruited Boley for LSU where he was offensive coordinator.
However, Stein and Sloan will not be coaching Boley, who started 10 games in 2025 and threw for 2,160 yards and 15 touchdowns. The redshirt freshman told ESPN’s Pete Thamel he would be putting his name into the transfer portal.
Boley’s agent had been hearing from plenty of teams who had interest in Boley and those calls intensified after Boley went public with his intention to transfer. Before Stoops was fired, he had indicated Boley was “all in” about staying at Kentucky even though Boley never said that because he wanted to see who would be coaching Kentucky.
Boley was at Stein’s introductory press conference and the new coach had wasted no time reaching out to Boley. However, when I asked Stein about his relationship and plans for Boley, he was very guarded with his answer.
“Not just Cutter, but everybody on the team I’m excited to coach,” Stein said. “This is a great opportunity for me. I know we have a lot of great players here. Ready to get working with them.”
Sloan was more eager to work with Boley. He said his conversations with Boley had been “awesome” and that he was “excited” to work with him after being around him.
“Love what he did there during the year. I think he’s I think he’s got a great future. So he’s been great. I recruited him back when he was in high school. We’ve had a long standing relationship. Fantastic kid, tough, right? And really talented,” Sloan said.
Social media speculation started as soon as Boley’s transfer news hit. Some speculated Stein wanted to bring in a quarterback or two to compete for the starting job and Boley wanted no part of that — remember Kentucky brought in Zach Calzada to “compete” with Boley last year and Calzada got the job immediately.
Maybe Boley just didn’t want to do that again knowing a quarterback a new coach brings in has to believe he will be the starter or he would not transfer. Oregon quarterback Austin Novosad has already announced he is entering the portal earlier and Boley, who was named to the all-SEC first team, might believe that is Stein’s choice to run his offense already.
There was speculation other schools might be offering more money than Stein and Kentucky wanted to invest in the Kentucky native. In today’s world, that could well be a factor here.
Boley ranked third in the league in pass completion percentage (65 percent) in the SEC last season behind Gunner Stockton of Georgia and Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia. That’s why Arizona State has already popped as a possible landing spot for Boley. Starter Sam Leavitt has thrown for 4,513 yards and 34 scores for Arizona State but is entering the transfer portal and Boley could be the top choice already for the Sun Devils.
Boley completed 74 percent of his passes in four of five games in the middle of the season but Boley and the Cats struggled in losses to Vanderbilt and Louisville to end the season. Boley amassed 203 of his 290 passing yards in a 45-17 loss to Vanderbilt in the fourth quarter when he stayed in the game despite having a shoulder injury. He was 13 of 26 for 100 yards with two interceptions in the season-ending loss to Louisville when he also refused to blame his shoulder injury for his numbers.
I was a bit surprised by the response of some UK fans who seemed to blame Boley entirely for last year’s issues and indicated they were glad he was leaving. No, Boley was not perfect but he certainly was not the biggest problem on UK’s offense.
The Cats currently have two quarterbacks — redshirt freshman Brennen Ward and five-star incoming freshman Matt Ponatoski (who could end up being a high pick in the Major League Baseball draft) — on the 2026 roster.
