Monday morning during Medal of Honor Bowl week is when the assembled NFL hopefuls are paraded before scouts and personnel experts. The players are measured and weighed and otherwise inspected to make sure they stack up to the demanding physical standards of pro football.

There were more than a few raised eyebrows when Nate Boyer was called to the scales.

“Really?” said Boyer, recalling the reaction with a chuckle. “This guy is a long-snapper?”

Of the more than 100 NFL prospects who will take the field Saturday in the Medal of Honor Bowl at Johnson Hagood Stadium, Boyer is by far the most unlikely.

It’s not just that at 5-10 and 197 pounds, the University of Texas graduate is a few inches and about 40 pounds shy of even the modest standards of an average NFL long-snapper.

There’s also the fact that at 34, he’s about 12 years older than his Medal of Honor Bowl teammates.

And then there’s Boyer’s summer job – Green Beret with the Texas National Guard and the Army’s Special Forces.

Boyer was deployed to Afghanistan over the last two summers, returning to Austin each August in time for football season. After walking on as a safety, Boyer earned a scholarship and the job as the Longhorns’ starting long-snapper, where he never had a bad snap. He learned how to long-snap by watching videos on YouTube, and practiced while he was deployed by snapping a football into a net or at a piece of plywood.

Boyer also saw his share of action on the battlefield. Last July, he was involved in a firefight in Afghanistan as part of a patrol of about a dozen Americans and 100 Afghan soldiers they had trained. Boyer can recall a bullet whizzing by his head, he said in an article by Yahoo Sports.

Before joining the military, Boyer worked on a fishing boat, trained as a firefighter, tried acting and volunteered at a refugee camp in Sudan. That last experience sparked his interest in the military.

During his Army career, Boyer was deployed many times into war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. The native of Dublin, Calif., was awarded a Bronze Star and was the first recipient of the Armed Forces Merit Award, an award also presented to Clemson receiver Daniel Rodriguez, another military veteran playing in the Medal of Honor Bowl.

“This is a great opportunity for me and all these guys,” Boyer said of the bowl. “This week has meant a lot to me because of my background. It brings together two things that I love, the military and football. I’m always amazed at how much college football embraces the military and veterans.

“I tell these (players) here, they don’t realize what a huge thing college football is to soldiers who are deployed. We watch all the games, even though they are on at five in the morning. We’ll stay up all night to watch college football, if we don’t have a mission. We’ll all huddle around whatever TV we can find and watch.”

Rodriguez’s story was well known to bowl officials Cal McCombs and Austin Atkinson, who put together the rosters for this year’s game. But McCombs was not aware of Boyer’s story until he called a coaching friend in Texas who said, “Do you need a long-snapper?”

Now, Boyer is hoping an NFL team has the same need.

“If I can get an opportunity I will make the most of it,” said Boyer, who already has a job lined up as an intern with a Hollywood production company. “That’s how I live my life, and that’s what I’m into. If someone takes a chance on me, I’ll do everything I can to not let them down.”

Daniel Rodriguez of Clemson University and Nate Boyer from the University of Texas have confirmed they will participate in the game that will be played on January 10, 2015 at The Citadel’s Johnson Hagood Stadium.

Rodriguez is a wide receiver from Stafford, Va., and a decorated war hero who served approximately 18 months in Iraq and one year in Afghanistan. He served in the Army from 2006-10, and achieved the rank of Sergeant. He was involved in the Battle of Kamdesh in Afghanistan on Oct. 3, 2009, when 300 Taliban insurgents battled with 38 U.S. troops. Eight Americans lost their lives and 22 were injured, including Rodriguez, in one of the most violent battles in the war. For his heroics, Rodriguez earned a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star Medal with Valor Device.

Boyer, from Dublin, Calif., served in the Green Berets Special Forces unit before coming to Longhorns and continues to serve in the Texas National Guard during the summers. He was named to the 2014 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team, which recognizes players whose charitable involvement and community service contributions stand out among all other student-athletes. A 2013 CoSIDA Academic All-American and a nominee in 2014, Boyer is a three-time first-team Academic All-Big 12 choice (2012-14) and a two-time semifinalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy (2013-14). Named the 2012-13 Big 12 Sportsperson of the Year, Boyer, in 2012, became the first-ever recipient of the Armed Forces Merit Award that was presented by the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA). He was also selected as the recipient of the 2012 Disney Spirit Award, given annually by Disney Sports to college football’s most inspirational figure. Boyer, who participated in relief work in the Darfur region of Africa prior to his time in the military, is a nine-time member of the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll.

The Medal of Honor Bowl, which will be televised live nationally by the NBC Sports Network, is a premier all-star game the features the nation’s top draft-eligible college football players as projected for the NFL Draft. The game honors the Medal of Honor recipients and the game’s beneficiaries, the Medal of Honor Museum Foundation, disabled veterans and wounded warriors.

Tickets, which range from $15-$40, may be secured at the Medal of Honor Bowl Game’s dedicated website www.MOHbowl.com/tickets. They will also be available at The Citadel Athletic Ticket Office at 843/953-DOGS (3647).

For more information, please refer to Twitter: @MOHbowl and Facebook.com/MOHbowl