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Women's Flag Football- Youth to Olympics (1 Viewer)

Follow up to this...

My daughter had expressed interest in playing flag football next year as she enters high school. That was in question as her top sport is volleyball and they are both fall sports. But, our school just announced that our Catholic school league started a 7th/8th grade girls team for this spring. So, she is playing. We shall see how she likes it. She is not a fan of running so, I am not totally convinced this will be a thing for her.

Also, I signed my son up for a flag football ID camp several months ago. The girls section was right before his session and there was just as many... if not more.... girls at this camp. Pretty cool to see.

I have seen the HS teams around our area, both private and public, explode over the last couple of years. It has got to be, easily, the fastest growing HS sport right now.
 
Chadstroma said:
Follow up to this...

My daughter had expressed interest in playing flag football next year as she enters high school. That was in question as her top sport is volleyball and they are both fall sports. But, our school just announced that our Catholic school league started a 7th/8th grade girls team for this spring. So, she is playing. We shall see how she likes it. She is not a fan of running so, I am not totally convinced this will be a thing for her.

Also, I signed my son up for a flag football ID camp several months ago. The girls section was right before his session and there was just as many... if not more.... girls at this camp. Pretty cool to see.

I have seen the HS teams around our area, both private and public, explode over the last couple of years. It has got to be, easily, the fastest growing HS sport right now.
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My daughter is about to go into her 3rd (and senior) season next month, and she absolutely loves it. She's a hockey girl so the aerobic and physical aspects fit her.

The girls all love it, and it really is a blast to watch them play, and see their enthusiasm to learn the game. In her first game two years ago she scored the first TD in her school's program history (72 yard catch and run), and then the following week caught a 25 yd TD with about 30 seconds to go to beat our biggest rival school and give us the first win in program history. That was wild.

Can't wait to watch them again this Spring. Hopefully your daughter has a great time with it!
 
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Can't wait until ESPN brings in the Olympic American flag football champions to do color on NFL broadcasts. Love **** like that.
 
One of my son's best friends since kindergarten was selected to participate in the girls flag football game at the Pro Bowl this year. Pretty cool experience for her being flown out there and playing on the field before the NFL game. They selected girls from the top high school programs to come represent.

It seems to be the fastest growing girls sport, at least from what I am seeing, and spreading rapidly as more states are adding it to the high schools.
 
Last night my daughters school team played their last volleyball game as they lost in the second round of playoffs. I brought up football and there seems to be a lot of excitement about playing. One of the girls who I took home is playing and that was a bit of a surprise to me. League rules are there is a 25 max roster. They are giving the 8th graders the opportunity to fill it first and it seems like they will get a good amount of those filled up. The AD also told me that there was a lot of interest in coaching (my daughter actually was good with my helping coach as well).
 
My son’s team of 6-7-8th graders got beat 36-0 by a team of girls and 1 boy. Game lasted 10 minutes (mercy rule is 35+ point differential)
I think his team is mostly 6th graders, I saw these girls in warmups and told him he was getting smoked. Didn’t help our team threw 4 straight picks, all for a score or stopped near goal line
 
Was curious, so I looked it up...65 NCAA colleges will have women's flag football programs this year, either at the varsity or club level, with more coming on board in 2026.

The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics has recommended that Divisions I, II, and III sponsor legislation to add the sport to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women Program. Once in the program, there needs to be 40 schools sponsoring the sport at the varsity level (and other game and participation requirements) to be considered for championship status.

I don't see anything slowing the sport's growth in the near future. Pretty cool to see.
 
Dan Lambskin said:
My son’s team of 6-7-8th graders got beat 36-0 by a team of girls and 1 boy. Game lasted 10 minutes (mercy rule is 35+ point differential)
I think his team is mostly 6th graders, I saw these girls in warmups and told him he was getting smoked. Didn’t help our team threw 4 straight picks, all for a score or stopped near goal line
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Watching the girls in the USA football ID camp, I was impressed. Not just a few here and there but most of the girls were looking good (in the football sense not the creepy sense). Then the boys came in and it was much more tiered where there were really good kids, then middle and then not so much and there were big gaps between. It seems that a lot of the athletic girls from other sports like soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc are all pretty attracted to playing flag football as another sport for them.
 
Skipdog77 said:
Was curious, so I looked it up...65 NCAA colleges will have women's flag football programs this year, either at the varsity or club level, with more coming on board in 2026.

The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics has recommended that Divisions I, II, and III sponsor legislation to add the sport to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women Program. Once in the program, there needs to be 40 schools sponsoring the sport at the varsity level (and other game and participation requirements) to be considered for championship status.

I don't see anything slowing the sport's growth in the near future. Pretty cool to see.
Click to expand...
I start officiating NCAA flag in March.
 
Skipdog77 said:
Was curious, so I looked it up...65 NCAA colleges will have women's flag football programs this year, either at the varsity or club level, with more coming on board in 2026.

The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics has recommended that Divisions I, II, and III sponsor legislation to add the sport to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women Program. Once in the program, there needs to be 40 schools sponsoring the sport at the varsity level (and other game and participation requirements) to be considered for championship status.

I don't see anything slowing the sport's growth in the near future. Pretty cool to see.
Click to expand...
The previous year our school started a 2/3 grade co-ed flag football program and I helped out coaching. One of the other parents helping to coach was the mother of one of my sons classmates who happens to be the HC for the local HS flag football team as well. We had a long conversation and she was telling me how many more schools, year over year, had exploded... I forgot the numbers she told me but it was a very big jump. Like from 20ish to 70ish and II just looked up the school tournament for 2024-25 and there was 159 HS entries for Illinois which would be a huge jump again.

No doubt NCAA will grow tremendously as well. Lacrosse has to be the next fastest growing sport but I think it is not nearly on a trajectory than girls flag football is.
 
My daughter (9th grader) played Flag for the first time this year on the HS JV team and enjoyed it. The games were fun to watch even though the team was not good. Seems like a great sport and I’m glad young women are getting the opportunity to enjoy the game.
 
We got an update email. 15 of the girls in 8th grade have signed up so far. That is roughly half the grade and I would expect a few more to sign up now with the reminder before they open it up to the 7th grade girls.
 
it is totally awesome and i am very glad it is a thing that is growing i think it had the biggest growth of all sports last year with over a 170 percent increase in the last three years take that to the endzone bank brohans
 
BassNBrew said:
Wonder if this will replace soccer as the queen of female sports.
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At least here in the Chicago area it is a fall sport along with soccer (I don't know how uniform or not that is across the country). The best athlete in my daughters 8th grade, who is a tremendous athlete, soccer is her top sport. She is playing flag football but she has so much time invested in soccer it is hard for me to think she would jump ship. On the other hand, her Dad is the OC for the HS football team.

But, by the numbers, soccer is third in HS behind track and field and then volleyball for participants. By the number of programs soccer is 6th behind basketball, track and field, volleyball, softball, and cross country.

Lacrosse is another sport that has been growing like a weed but is a spring sport (here at least) which a lot of soccer girls play lacrosse as well. I assume flag football will line up with football and be a fall sport like here. If so, how much will that impact each sport?
 
SWC said:
it is totally awesome and i am very glad it is a thing that is growing i think it had the biggest growth of all sports last year with over a 170 percent increase in the last three years take that to the endzone bank brohans
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Hey now, that's someone's (my) daughter. :boxing:
 
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Reactions: SWC
Chadstroma said:
BassNBrew said:
Wonder if this will replace soccer as the queen of female sports.
Click to expand...
At least here in the Chicago area it is a fall sport along with soccer (I don't know how uniform or not that is across the country). The best athlete in my daughters 8th grade, who is a tremendous athlete, soccer is her top sport. She is playing flag football but she has so much time invested in soccer it is hard for me to think she would jump ship. On the other hand, her Dad is the OC for the HS football team.

But, by the numbers, soccer is third in HS behind track and field and then volleyball for participants. By the number of programs soccer is 6th behind basketball, track and field, volleyball, softball, and cross country.

Lacrosse is another sport that has been growing like a weed but is a spring sport (here at least) which a lot of soccer girls play lacrosse as well. I assume flag football will line up with football and be a fall sport like here. If so, how much will that impact each sport?
Click to expand...
Ours is a Spring sport, so it goes up against lacrosse and softball which are big here. They had been letting girls play both flag and either softball or lacrosse but not sure they will do that this season. My daughter said they had a great turnout at their first meeting this week though. Practices start Monday...let's go!
 
Skipdog77 said:
Chadstroma said:
BassNBrew said:
Wonder if this will replace soccer as the queen of female sports.
Click to expand...
At least here in the Chicago area it is a fall sport along with soccer (I don't know how uniform or not that is across the country). The best athlete in my daughters 8th grade, who is a tremendous athlete, soccer is her top sport. She is playing flag football but she has so much time invested in soccer it is hard for me to think she would jump ship. On the other hand, her Dad is the OC for the HS football team.

But, by the numbers, soccer is third in HS behind track and field and then volleyball for participants. By the number of programs soccer is 6th behind basketball, track and field, volleyball, softball, and cross country.

Lacrosse is another sport that has been growing like a weed but is a spring sport (here at least) which a lot of soccer girls play lacrosse as well. I assume flag football will line up with football and be a fall sport like here. If so, how much will that impact each sport?
Click to expand...
Ours is a Spring sport, so it goes up against lacrosse and softball which are big here. They had been letting girls play both flag and either softball or lacrosse but not sure they will do that this season. My daughter said they had a great turnout at their first meeting this week though. Practices start Monday...let's go!
Click to expand...
Yea... when you are getting a program going you are going to be very permissive. As it becomes a major girls sport (which it does look like that is the trajectory) they will start to be more picky. I would think that battle would be Lacrosse vs Flag Football more so than vs Softball but that of course is a big over generalization. My daughter's best friend is big into Softball and she wants to play QB (the way she baseball throws a basketball she has got to have a cannon for an arm).
 
Picked up my daughter from practice today and was a bit early. They had the girls basically doing go routes and the coaches throwing to them. My daughter, surprisingly, looked pretty good. She didn't drop any that I saw. Looked to be one of the better receivers out there. My niece who is also playing, looked really good too. I am really looking forward to watching her. It is kind of exciting for her doing a whole new sport as she has been locked on basketball and volleyball from day 1.
 
First two games Sunday. (they play two games every Sunday)

My daughter is one of the starting WR's. When she told me this I jokingly replied "they know you are slow, right?" lol She isn't really slow but isn't fast either. She does catch better and can run better routes than the other girls which is why she is starting. More of a possession WR type.

The first game we started off quick with our starting QB (best athlete of the girls by far) taking an 80 yard run to the house. The second ever TD was my daughter on a 45 yard reception that she about 30 of it avoiding several girls. She almost fell like three times and later told me "I just kept thinking 'don't fall, don't fall, don't fall.'" It was the most exciting run of the day and everyone in the stands went crazy. She had another chance later in the game but he dropped the ball in the end zone. She said the defender near her pushed her but she could have caught it. We won that first game somewhere around 20-6.

The second game we jumped ahead quickly and my daughter did not play much as they put the second/third teams in but my niece went off with three TD's and a conversion reception as well. I think the score was somewhere around 40-7. It was hard to keep track as I was freezing my booty off (forgot my sweatshirt and it was super cold) and the scoreboard was not being operated.

My daughter really enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching it as well- very fun. The big difference from regular football to flag football being the action is very easy to take all in as there is no real O or D lines that sometimes can swallow up what is happening because there is so much going on.

The HC for our local HS that my daughter is going to was there. I know her and she mentioned to me after the game that it was a great run and she looked athletic. The sucky thing is that though my daughter would like to play in HS, Volleyball is her top sport and they are both fall sports. She confirmed that playing both was very unlikely as there would be a lot of conflict with practice and games. A big reason she is going to this school and not one of the Catholic private schools is a much better chance of making the Volleyball team.

One of the games she plays next Sunday is our hated rival who apparently went 2-0 as well and has been said they are practicing three times a week (ours has been one or two.... one when the school play was underway). It will be interesting how that goes.
 
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4-0 now wth two more wins this Sunday. The first was against easily the best team that they have played. It was a really good game. They had an explosive offense that our defense had problems keeping in check and their defense kept us from big plays but we did a good job of keeping the ball moving in chunks. The big difference was that we converted our extra points and they did not. We exchanged TD for TD with us up 24-20 with their ball with a bit over a minute to go. They drove down to about mid field and then we got a pick 6 to end the game. My daughter dropped a pass in the end zone but then she played some on defense and got some flags.

The second game the opposing team clearly offensively was not very good but decent defensively. Plus, I think our girls were a little tired from the first game. I ended up having to leave at half to take my son to his volleyball games and of course my daughter had a 20 yard ish TD reception that I missed.

So far a great inaugural year for the girls and they all seem to really be enjoying it.
 
Update....

7-1 now. We were 7-0 after playing the first game Sunday. Went up against a team I believe is also 7-0. It was a good game. I think our offense got a little too predictable (90% of the time same formation which is a quadruple option... RB comes up and fake hand off/hand off, a WR pulls over and then again a fake hand off or hand off and then QB has option to run or pass. If WR takes hand off they also have option to pass. A lot going on there but it was the same thing every time and it was just a matter of which way we took it. The other team did a good job in holding their edges and stopped us much more than other teams have in the past. We were up by 4 (our conversions versus stopping theirs) and then they stopped us and on the next possession scored to go up by 2 (we stopped their conversion again). We were marching down the field and then our WR on the option took the hand off and immediately looked downfield but then stared down the reciever for a very long time and finally threw it where it got intercepted. We got her flag but it would have been better to have let them score to have a chance as they ran out the rest of the clock on runs. Tough game.

My daughter has been moved to starting defense and gets put in on offense at times. She had a great catch where she went up and caught the ball between two girls, as she was coming down the defender ran into her which took her to the opposite direction which the other defender was coming and hit her and she went down. It as much more of a football play than a flag football play but she held on to the ball. She grabbed some flags but missed a few. After the game she was crying, I was telling her that she had good games and she told me that I didn't know flag football..... :oldunsure: I texted her Mom asking if it was that time of the year.

This weekend one of the two games is against our rivals- the team that broke her arm in basketball to kill her season 15 seconds in and half her volleyball season. They should be a good team. It has been a great and super fun season. Enjoying this a ton.
 
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Yesterday at the track meet the HC of the team, one of the mothers who also runs the flag football team for one of the nearby Catholic HS, was there. Apparently our rivals are trying to play games and manipulate the schedule so we play back to back (second game against them) when it was originally supposed to be that we played first game, sat second then played them. The amount of cheating and dirty crap that goes on in this Catholic league is just insane.

I also found out that our best players (an athletic stud) tweaked her knee during our last game. She didn't tell anyone and played through it (which was dang amazing as no one could see any difference in her game). She may or may not play- they are basically resting her and seeing how she feels come Sunday. They got her an MRI and everything to be safe and all was clear. If she does not play then my niece, who is the clear second best player on the team, will be asked to step up and they will move a girl who is pretty fast but mostly plays defense over to offense.

I also got clarify on the whole crying thing. Something was said to my daughter about walking. In the car on the ride home I couldn't understand because it was teenage crybabble. It had to with if she missed a flag (happened a couple of times) she basically gave up on the play. I told her today on the way to dropping off at practice that she had to keep in the play as she didn't know what would transpire and she could end up being in the right place if she hustles... it could be an extra play a game that can make a difference.

We went tied for 1st with the tie breaker to 3rd. The two teams ahead are the team we just lost to and our rivals we play this Sunday.
 
We easily beat the first team, keeping them scoreless. That team and our rival played with us on a rest and then we played our rival but couldn't get anything going. We lost convincingly. However, that was without our star player and without another player who is probably our third fastest player. One more weekend and then playoffs.
 
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