The autopsy results for Cullen Finnerty, the star college quarterback found dead in the Michigan woods in late May, revealed Thursday that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease found in the autopsies of several former N.F.L. players.

In telephone interviews, however, doctors who studied Finnerty’s brain cautioned against the obvious and increasingly familiar narrative: that football and the hits Finnerty endured while playing it could be blamed for his death. Family members expressed a similar sentiment.

“There is no reason to jump to the conclusion that football played an important role in Cullen’s death,” said Dr. Robert Stern, a professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Boston University and a founder of the university’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. “There are just too many possible variables. We will never truly know what caused his death. That’s the truth of it.”

Stern added: “There has been way too much publicity about football leading to people’s deaths. It is just too complicated for a simplistic summary like that.”