The List Grows

While looking for something unrelated, I found a women's flag football tidbit last week that I wanted to share. I mentioned in my initial entry when talking about the next sport coming to the UT Arlington portfolio that there were not many schools in Texas and certainly not as many NCAA institutions near UTA that sponsored the sport at the time.

However, there were some folks that were optimistic that number would grow. At the time, the only known NCAA schools Division I were Alabama State, Long Island University, Mercyhurst and Mount Saint Mary's. The known Texas school was Concordia University.

There have been so many additions to the sport since then that keeping up and staying current is turning into a labor of love. It's also one that has been missed by me too often with so many new programs getting their announcement.

At the beginning of August, six schools from the American Southwest Conference announced plans to start the sport, making it an official conference sport within the ASC.

In a separate announcement earlier this month, Texas A&M-Texarkana is adding both a tackle football team as well as a women's flag football program. I haven't seen anything concrete, save for a mention in the strategic vision plan where it gives a start time of fall 2027. If I had to venture an opinion, that means Spring of 2028, but may well be Spring of 2027. They'll move from the NAIA to Division II of the NCAA and find a home in the Lone Star Conference. I don't see any other DII school in that conference mentioning the sport.

For those unfamiliar with the ASC, it is a Division III conference within the NCAA that is headquartered in Richardson, Texas. They, like a lot of conferences across all Divisions, have dealt with instability in their membership numbers.  Starting next academic year, the same year that these schools and UTA will offer the sport, they will have six members, all in Texas: East Texas Baptist in Marshall, Hardin-Simmons and McMurray in Abilene, Howard Payne in Brownwood, Mary-Hardin-Baylor in Belton and Schreiner in Kerrville.

As of my knowledge right now, Concordia University in Austin is the only other NCAA institution in Texas to have the sport. They are a member of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference in Division III. 

I heard someone wonder if the ASC could be a future home for UTA as the sport gets off the ground. My answer is probably not, if not a definite no. Division III is a different animal in so many ways. There's a reason the number of private schools in in DIII is higher in ratio to the public schools than the other two Divisions. 

DIII schools use athletics as an enrollment driver. If you look at their sport offerings, they consistently have 20 or more. For schools that have 2,000 students, athletes are a huge portion of the student body. As the school isn't paying for grants-in-aid, or athletic scholarships, the school itself earns tuition money and have a net gain from each athlete on their respective rosters. As such, their athletes tend to be those with little-to-no options for a post-high-school career, but want to keep playing. In fact, there's a strong likelihood that some quality athletes who can't afford to play at DIII schools are more than capable of being good athletes at the DIII level, but weren't recruited or played at a DII school. That isn't to say DIII athletes can't get academic scholarships, but there aren't guaranteed.

As for UTA, this will be a scholarship sport. The model will be different. Given UTA's academic reputation, a choice between UTA and a generic or typical DIII school will go in UTA's favor at an extremely higher rate. So likely, year in and out, UTA should be the better team by a large margin.

I just can't imagine any ASC school being okay with that. Even if it was temporary and done to stabilize the membership, DIII president's tend to cluster with other similar schools.

Also, there's a real chance that within the next five years to a decade, there will be enough schools that the sport could be organized within its own natural NCAA Divisions. It is just growing that fast.

That, coupled with my conversation with the UTA Athletic Director Jon Fagg, UTA could be competitive as an independent program. If the schedule consists of weekend tournaments of four teams or more, UTA with its airport access and facilities will host a few and be fine with no formal home.

One factoid that I have researched and was unable to find was actually in the ASC press release. The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics recommended women's flag football be added to the Emerging Sports program for the entirety of the NCAA. In January, the vote takes place at the NCAA Convention in National Harbor, Maryland. Once that is done, which I'm told is a formality, 40 schools among the over 1,000 in the NCAA must sponsor it at the varsity level and "meet the minimum contest and participation requirements" for the NCAA to offer a championship for the sport.

I don't know what minimum means, and I'm sure that will get settled in January, UTA was the fifth DI school to announce and there are now seven other DIII Texas schools. With the Texas A&M-Texarkana announcement, that's well over a quarter needed by pure numbers. It is nearly a quarter just in Texas alone. There's a very real, good chance that the minimum is met before the decade turns. 

As for the NAIA, Texas Wesleyan down Division Street in Fort Worth will sponsor a varsity team. They play their first season in the spring of this year. There's a high chance the Rams will appear on a UTA schedule. 

In nearby states, Oklahoma Wesleyan in Bartlesville will start a program the same year UTA does. It is roughly a five-hour drive from campus to campus.

I will try to keep adding relevant news about schools adding the sport as they go. My hope is a few more regional schools add the sport, allowing a greater interest in the sport to build with the added benefit of the rivalry.