Flag Football Proceeds

There's been some developments in UT Arlington's fledgling women's flag football program that kind of got lost in the spring sport shuffle of the previous three or four months. Some of the news is internal, some external and with that comes speculation.

In my last full post on the topic, seen here, it mentioned the American Southwest Conference, a Division III conference composed primarily of small private schools, will sponsor the sport. They were the first NCAA conference to sponsor flag football. I heard minor speculation that the ASC could be a home for UTA's newest sport. Without hearing anything from an official source, I had then and still have doubts. I speculated there would be a DI conference offering the sport within half a decade.

Turns out, that was too long. In April, the Big South Conference announced they would sponsor the sport, becoming the first at the highest level to take the plunge. What's interesting to me is how the schools in the Big South treat flag football.

When UTA announced sponsorship, they were the fifth in DI to officially make the sport part of the Athletic Department. In the South, only Alabama State was on the list. Shortly after that linked post, North Alabama announced plans to start the sport as well. The Lions are set to join the re-branded home conference of UTA, the United Athletic Conference, in July. 

In addition to the four prior to UTA - Alabama State, Long Island University, Mercyhurst and Mount Saint Mary's - it appears the list is up to 12 total. In addition to those original five and UNA, California Polytechnic, Eastern Michigan, Fairleigh Dickinson, Manhattan, Mississippi Valley State and South Carolina Upstate are making flag football a varsity sport.

Now, oddly, on that list, only USC Upstate is a Big South school. In their press release, the conference lists Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb, Radford and North Carolina-Ashford as sponsoring institutions. But the release follows that with the inaugural year, 2027/28, the membership will be a mix of club and varsity schools. At this time, only one of the five is actually varsity. I'm not sure of any other sport where there's an NCAA multi-sport conference that offers a championship path for club teams. There also may be a real possibility these club teams get elevated to varsity status shortly.

Later in the same release, it added a bit of info that piqued my curiosity:

"Additional full-member participation plus regional affiliate membership is anticipated in the months ahead as interest in the sport continues to surge."

Now, of course the obvious part when they say additional full-member participation is at least one, maybe more, of the four other Big South teams will add WFF. Whether at the club or varsity level is speculation. 

But for UTA, I mentioned the ASC probably isn't a suitable home, even on a temporary basis. But the Big South sure could be. Granted the rivalries aren't exactly geographic, but a home is a home. I'd still suggest independence would be better, especially as the sport gains a footing. But it isn't out of the realm of possibility, especially if closer schools jump in. I'm still waiting for some other DI University in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas or Oklahoma to join the fray.

What I do find odd is among the 12 DI U's, the UAC, Southwestern Athletic Conference and Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference have two schools sponsoring the sport within their respective conferences. The Northeast Conference has three. Yet, none of them have made news to start a championship. That likely will change in the next year or two I would imagine.

While on the topic of club sports, there's several things I find interesting. When comparing varsity to club sport participation, there is a glaring deficiency at the DI level. I've mentioned there are 12 DI schools. By my tally with the latest information I can find, there are 48 Division II schools and 73 DIII. I mentioned the DIII model, non-scholarship sports where a bulk of the enrollment comes from athletes, so that high a number isn't surprising. DII is low-cost athletics, where budgets are tighter. I was surprised to see that number as high as it is.

But it hasn't caught on at the highest level. Of the 12 DI schools, only one is in the Football Bowl Subdivision. And that one is in the Group of Six. There are no Power Four schools that sponsor it. There are six FCS schools and five non-football schools in that list. More non-football school have flag football than the highest level of college football.

But even at the club level, there are only 23 P4 schools, 16 G6 schools, 18 Football Championship Schools and 20 non-football DI schools. That's a total of 77 DI schools with club flag football. The likelihood is that some will be elevated to varsity. But the fact that no P4 has done so intrigues me. They are always looking at ways to satisfy Title IX for their football programs. The easiest prong is to show progress to expanding female participation. 

In Texas, UTA is still the only one. There are a couple of club teams in Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern. I was expecting more schools to follow. UTA announced over a year ago. There has been no traction in a state with a huge football culture since. At the high school level, girls flag football is exploding and is garnering the attention of the UIL, the governing body of Texas high school sports. Its not officially sanctioned yet, but many see it as a matter of time.

One new addition to the list of universities sponsoring the growing sport that surprised me is in the neighboring county. I mentioned NAIA's Texas Wesleyan in September. Turns out, North Texas-Dallas, in the same classification, is sponsoring a varsity team. They only sponsor basketball, cross country and track and field for both genders. That came as a surprise to me. Their home field has not been announced. The track teams use Dallas ISD's Kincaide Stadium, a very good facility. That's another candidate for the new Mav schedule.

As for UTA, the first recruiting class is in. I haven't mentioned her on these pages yet, but inaugural head coach Melinda Nguyen has neared the end, if not completed the first recruiting class. I've followed it on Twitter, or X or whatever, but I'm not sure of big names or talent yet. I did see two area high school kids were signed. There are also a lot of international players. I saw highlights and the players look good on the surface, very athletic and entertaining. I hope that translates out to a full game stretched out to a full season.

I was hoping to link to a roster, but nothing is up on UTAMavs.com yet.

I'd wager that a schedule will be the next big release coming. I'd still bet that there will be a Texas tie or several, but with more and more teams signing on, there's could be a lot of national interest. Of course, any new school announcement likely would be for the 2027/28 academic year (UTA needed more than one year), rather than this upcoming one. So it really is a matter of finding the teams to play within the current crop of schools.

But, it is good to see momentum building. I'm really looking forward to this come February.