{"id":325904,"date":"2025-12-02T11:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T11:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/325904\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T11:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T11:24:10","slug":"cutter-boley-caught-off-guard-by-mark-stoops-firing-evaluating-all-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/325904\/","title":{"rendered":"Cutter Boley caught off guard by Mark Stoops’ firing, evaluating all options"},"content":{"rendered":"

Had Kentucky beaten Louisville, Mark Stoops would probably still be UK\u2019s head coach. So, you\u2019ll forgive Cutter Boley<\/a> if he\u2019s got a little bit of whiplash. Kentucky\u2019s star quarterback told John Brice at Football Scoop<\/a> that he was caught off guard by the news that Stoops was out<\/a> after 13 seasons, which broke on Sunday night. Kentucky reportedly held a team meeting Monday morning, after which Mitch Barnhart made the move official.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still in, like \u2026 I\u2019m still processing it a little bit,\u201d Boley said. \u201cIt kind of came as a bit of a surprise to, I feel like, everybody here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boley publicly supported Stoops throughout the 2025 season, even during Kentucky\u2019s four-game losing streak in October. After Saturday\u2019s loss at Louisville, the Hodgenville, Ky. native made it clear that he wants to be at Kentucky. Now that Stoops, and, presumably, Bush Hamdan, are out, Boley wants to step back and evaluate all of his options, including whoever takes the job in Lexington.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just moving forward, I\u2019m trying to find the best place, wherever that may be, whether it\u2019s here,\u201d said Boley, \u201cor wherever I can kind of showcase what I can do in the best system for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a wise move for Boley, who finished his redshirt freshman season with 198 completions for 2,160 yards, 15 touchdowns, and 12 turnovers. He struggled vs. Louisville, totaling just 100 yards and two interceptions, but this season, Boley set the new UK freshman record for completion percentage, 65.8% (198-301), breaking Jared Lorenzen\u2019s mark of 57.4% set in 2000. Boley also broke Lorenzen\u2019s old UK freshman record for touchdown passes in a season in SEC games. Boley had 12 to Lorenzen\u2019s 10. <\/p>\n

Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein and Ohio State offensive coordinator Brian Hartline are the frontrunners for the Kentucky job<\/a>. Both run systems which should appeal to Boley \u2014 although you never know who could follow them to Lexington. Hartline could have an in with Boley thanks to his brother Mike, who played quarterback for Kentucky from 2006-10 and was a key resource to Boley this season as an analyst on Stoops\u2019 staff. Stein could also appeal to Boley as a fellow Kentuckian who grew up dreaming of playing for the Cats, even if he wound up at Louisville. <\/p>\n

Either way, Boley\u2019s going to take his time with his decision (the transfer portal doesn\u2019t open until January, after all). Hopefully, he likes whoever Kentucky picks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Had Kentucky beaten Louisville, Mark Stoops would probably still be UK\u2019s head coach. So, you\u2019ll forgive Cutter Boley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[109824,399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-325904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-cutter-boley-24-lexington-christian-academy","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}