Kenny Dillingham doesn’t want to give Kansas State any hints about quarterback situation

TEMPE — Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham shied away from discussing the quarterback position Monday after Mikey Keene took over for Cutter Boley at halftime Saturday at Texas Tech.

Keene replaced Boley when ASU trailed 43-10 at the half after Boley bookended his first half with interceptions, including an early pick-six three plays after the ASU defense got a takeaway.

“I’m not really going to get into that in great detail,” Dillingham said. “Like I said after the game, I got a lot of confidence in both those guys and, you know, conference opponent (coming up), I’m not going to get into much detail about that, if at all.

“This week in particular, it’s just I don’t know if we need to disclose that. If there was an injury, I would 100% come out and say it; we would put it on the report. But it not being an injury, to me, I don’t think that would do anything for us.”

The 5-foot-11 Keene threw for 256 yards and two touchdowns on 74% passing to outdo Boley’s 124 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions on 50% passing.

The offense operated much smoother behind Keene, albeit against a defense that was rightfully on cruise control, one that didn’t have real film on Keene in an ASU uniform.

That said, a smooth operation should be expected from the veteran Keene, a Valley product who now carries a career passing touchdown-to-interception ratio of 67-28.

The sixth-year quarterback, who had more than 2,200 snaps between two seasons at UCF and two seasons at Fresno State as well as a medical-redshirt season at Michigan, put the blowout loss on the players for not showing up on game day the way they had in practice.

“We can’t just act like the week is done when we get to a game day,” Keene told reporters postgame. “We do all this stuff in the summer, work our asses off the entire summer, we earned 12 opportunities. … This was our best week of practice. When Dilly says all this stuff to you, it sounds like he’s [expletive] but I swear to God it was the best week of practice.

“It’s got to come from us. The coaches aren’t on the field, so ultimately it comes down to us.”

While Dillingham deflected from the quarterback question more than once on Monday, he did refer to Keene’s postgame comments as an example of a vocal element of leadership that the team has lacked this season.

Boley has 14 total touchdowns with five interceptions (three of which were returned for touchdowns) with 1,353 passing yards (seventh in the Big 12) in six starts this season.

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