After graduating high school, Boyer briefly worked as a deck hand on a sport fishing boat in San Diego.

[3] After a short stint there, he enlisted in the United States Army, training at Fort Benning,[4] and later was accepted into the Green Berets.

After multiple tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Boyer earned an honorable discharge as a staff sergeant after six years of service.

He was also named the 2012–13 Big 12 Sportsperson of the Year, the third Longhorn to be honored, and was the inaugural winner of the Armed Forces Merit Award.

In 2015, he was named to the NFF Hampshire Honor Society, which recognizes athletes with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.2 during their college careers.

[11] In 2015, Boyer and Fox Sports analyst Jay Glazer founded Merging Vets & Players (MVP), a foundation to support military veterans and retired athletes.

[12] He appeared in the Madden NFL 18 video game's story mode Longshot as Captain McCarthy, a soldier who assists protagonist Devin Wade in rediscovering a love for football.