Boley makes his first start tonight against Morgan State
Cutter Boley gets his first start under center tonight against Morgan State, capping a summer-long quarterback battle as Arizona State chases its 27th straight home-opener win at Mountain America Stadium.
Boley's first start comes tonight, with a brand-new room to throw to
Kenny Dillingham named Cutter Boley the starter on August 29, closing out a competition against sixth-year transfer Mikey Keene, sophomore Cam Dyer and true freshman Jake Fette. "We felt like he had a great camp, did a good job taking care of the football... We think Cutter is the best opportunity for us to go win football games. We feel like he deserves it and he won it," Dillingham said, per 247Sports. Boley started 11 games over 2 seasons at Kentucky, completing 65.8% of his passes for 2,489 yards and 17 touchdowns in 2025, a freshman completion-percentage record at the school.
Tonight is where all of that gets tested for real. Boley's targets are new too — with Jordyn Tyson in the NFL, he's throwing to transfers Omarion Miller (Colorado) and Reed Harris (Boston College), who combined for 84 catches, 1,481 yards and 13 touchdowns last season and are already penciled in as starters on ASU's first depth chart of the year, per Heavy. "I can't wait to get out there," Boley told reporters this week, per Yahoo Sports, and tonight against Morgan State he finally gets to.
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Last season ended on a shootout ASU lost — and the guys who started it are gone
Boley inherits a team that finished last season with real momentum before it slipped away. The Sun Devils won 3 straight in November last year — at Iowa State 24-19, at home over West Virginia 25-23, then a 42-17 rout at Colorado — before Arizona ended the rivalry game 23-7 in Tempe. Last season closed out on New Year's Eve with a 39-42 loss to Duke, a track meet that summed up a team built around Sam Leavitt slinging it and Jordyn Tyson catching it.
Both of those players are gone now — Tyson to the NFL Draft, Leavitt transferring to LSU — which is why last season's finish reads less like recent form and more like a closed chapter. The record sits at 0-0 because nothing has been played yet, not because of anything that happened against Duke, and there's no current run to point to. Tonight's opener is a genuine reset, not a continuation of anything.
First-ever HBCU opponent, and a 27-game home-opener streak riding on it
Saturday's kickoff is also a first for the program itself — Arizona State has never played an HBCU opponent before Morgan State, per Sun Devil Athletics. It also arrives with history attached: the Sun Devils are chasing their 27th consecutive home-opener win, the second-longest active streak in the country behind only Illinois, and are 83-28-2 all-time on Opening Day. Mountain America Stadium has been a fortress lately too, an 11-2 mark there over the last two seasons with every 2025 home game sold out.
Morgan State arrives 1-0 after opening its own season with a win, and the market isn't pretending this is close — Arizona State opened as a 41.5-point favorite with the total set at 52.5. That's the kind of number reserved for a Big 12 program hosting an FCS opponent making its first trip to a campus like this one, and it's why tonight is less about the scoreboard than about seeing Boley and the new-look offense for the first time.
The debut everybody's been waiting since August 29 for
It's Arizona State tonight vs. Morgan State, the first live look at Dillingham's rebuilt offense and the answer to a question the program has been sitting with since Boley won the job. A defense replacing linebacker Z. Fiaseu, out for the season with a knee injury per Covers' aggregated injury table, gets its first live look too, while tight end K. Anderson — carrying a lower-leg tag Covers describes as unresolved — sits atop this week's depth chart regardless, per Heavy.
Whatever tonight looks like, it's a one-week appetizer. ASU travels to No. 8 Texas A&M on September 12, a trip that will tell a far more honest story about where this team actually is. Tonight is just about finding out who Cutter Boley is with the lights on.