2025 Bowl Series: David Nunez was Born to be a Bobcat

There are those who say life is a series of coincidences, while others believe that everything happens for a reason, that everything is meant to be. For Texas State’s David Nunez, however you spin it, he’s living his full circle moment right now.

The Bobcats will play Rice in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl on January 2 at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas. A team and place Nunez is more than familiar with.

He isn’t the first in his family to play football at the collegiate level. His brother, Adam, was a punter as well. 

“I was 14 years old,” Nunez recalls. “I was sitting in the stands at Amon Carter Stadium, watching my brother play football. And that's when I knew for sure I wanted to play college football. And now, here I am. Alost ten years later. Playing my last football game against Rice in Amon G. Carter Stadium.”

You couldn’t have scripted it better. Not only did Adam play at TCU, but he finished his career at Rice. Talk about in-state rivals. David notes that the dinner table conversations are ‘pretty awesome’ with the family, and now they can add this to the topic of conversation.

But, if you can believe it, it doesn’t stop there.

“My best friend in the whole world, I was the best man in his wedding… His little brother, basically my little brother, plays for Rice. It really is like a fairy tale ending to my college football career,” Nunez said.

Nunez is the longest tenured member of the Texas State football program on the 2025 roster. His first season of college football was 2020, and, in this era of college football, he’s in rare company playing every season for the Bobcats. Even more so because he didn’t see his first significant action until the 2024 season.

Nunez played in three games from 2020-23, while only punting once. Now, he’s the Bobcats’ primary punter after splitting duties in 2024. Those early years didn’t stop his family from making the trip to San Marcos every gameday.

“Neither one of my parents has ever missed a minute of my college football career. They sat through four years of watching me not play and sit on the sidelines and root for my team, and it eventually paid off. Now they've gotten to watch me play for two seasons.” 

There’s a part of Nunez that seems prepared for the possibility that January 2 might be his last game. He’s thought that before. Coming out of high school he didn’t have a single offer.

“I thought that was going to be my last football game ever,” he said about leaving the field after a standout career as a punter and cornerback at Second Baptist in Houston.

Nunez eventually committed to Lehigh, an FCS school in Pennsylvania, but he changed his mind. He had some extra time to think about things and although Texas State was just a quick two and a half hours away from Houston, Texas State wasn’t on his radar. He had never even seen the football stadium.

That changed. And as he says, “The rest is history.”

Arriving at Texas State was exciting at first for a small private school kid. This was big time football. But, six years later, big time football has a different meaning to him.

“It would go from I want to quit, this is the worst thing in the world, to alright, now I'll stick around ... there's at least once every year that I seriously considered quitting football. Honestly, it's a blessing, but I ended up staying around just because I’ve gotten to experience so many cool things.”

The turning point for him, the arrival of GJ Kinne and staff. 

“When I think about playing my last bowl game, my last football game ever, I'm never going to put pads on … it's the friendships, the guys on the team that I've spent so much time with in the locker room, on the on the busses, on the planes and the practice field, in the weight room. It's like those times that are in between all the big moments that I'm really going to miss. Those are definitely the reasons I show up every single day. It's just for my teammates.”

After wrapping up the 2024 season, another history-making campaign for the Bobcats, Nunez had a decision to make.

“Definitely looking for jobs. I was definitely thinking about hanging up the cleats.”

But Nunez went into his final season at TXST preparing to work with his fourth special teams coordinator instead. He had no idea what to expect with Tanner Burns coming in, but the regret he would feel not taking the chance set him up for his final season in San Marcos.

Nunez was named a 2025 team captain and, on August 9, he was surprised with a scholarship.

You could say that Nunez’s journey has been a complex one. In each moment throughout, he would have probably agreed with you. But, when you give him a minute to just pause and think about it, it’s so much simpler than that. 

“It's a lot to look back on and I get it, you sit here and think about the fact that it all started in, you know, 2020. Six seasons later, this is what it looks like. This is kind of cool.”

Since not having Texas State even remotely on his radar, Nunez has had a front row seat to what Texas State Football has become.

“It's awesome. I've been here for such a long time because I fell in love with the school and I fell in love with the people, and I decided to ride it out and put all my all my chips and all my eggs in Texas State football's basket … it's an honor because I kind of feel like I just, I got lucky. I rode the wave to success with the rest of the team, but it makes me super, super proud to be a bobcat for sure.