How Texas State’s New Football Facilities Are Helping the Bobcats Prepare for Their Big Move to the Pac-12

When the TXST Bobcats take the field for their 2026 spring game on April 25, they’ll do so on the heels of three straight winning seasons and bowl victories. Plaques honoring those achievements adorn a patio deck that’s part of the new 85,000-square-foot expansion of the South End Zone Complex at UFCU Stadium.

The football team is training this spring in its first offseason in the new Johnny & Nathali Weisman Football Performance Center. The $37 million upgrade to UFCU Stadium, which was completed in October, includes an 8,000-square-foot weight room, players' lounge, training area, team meeting rooms, and locker rooms. 

The hallways of the new complex are lined with life-size photos from milestone moments in Bobcat football history, like when the team members made celebratory leaps into the San Marcos River to commemorate their bowl victories. TXST hopes the highlight reel will continue this fall as the team enters the inaugural season of the newly formed Pac-12 Conference. 

“There’s definitely a new energy in the building,” says Christianna Howell, assistant athletic trainer for TXST football. “The wall art reminds us of the things we’ve been able to accomplish and that there’s still much more for us to strive for.”

Since joining the athletics staff full-time in 2023, Howell has worked to help football players prepare for and recover from the physical toll of the game.  

The new facility upgrades are helping her treat football players more efficiently and creatively, thanks in part to the new weight room, which features over a dozen individual stations for football players to perform key exercises uninterrupted. Across the hall from the weight room, a newly renovated training facility includes three hydrotherapy tubs, one of which has an underwater treadmill. The equipment allows athletes to perform walking and running exercises while putting minimal weight on their joints.  

“This improved facility will put us in a better position to compete at a higher level,” Howell says. 

The upgraded facilities are helping athletes perform their best not only physically, but also mentally. Several new meeting rooms maximize game planning and film study.

“The upgrades were something we really needed, especially with the move into the Pac-12,” says Evan King, video coordinator for TXST football. “It has made a big difference in how we use our time day-to-day.”

King, who was the 2024 Sun Belt Conference Video Coordinator of the Year, has filmed team practices and games and created promotional videos for TXST since 2022.

He says having new meeting spaces allow individual team units to have more efficient and strategic film review sessions.  

“Instead of juggling around limited shared meeting spaces, coaches are now able to focus more on scheme and player development on all three phases of the game,” he says.

The less time student-athletes spend waiting for meeting rooms, the more time they have to unwind and focus on their academic responsibilities. The renovated End Zone Complex features study lounges for student-athletes to comfortably read and complete their coursework.  

“The Habit Reflects the Mission” is a team motto that resonates with the players and staff of the TXST football program. For King, the new facilities, resources, and equipment at UFCU Stadium are helping Bobcat athletes build lifelong habits.  

“It’s not just about what they do on game day; it is about developing the whole person,” he says. “If our mission is to succeed on the field, we have to create those habits off the field. With these new facilities we can accomplish the standards we have set here at Texas State football.”