Three High School Associations, John Carroll University Add Flag Football

DOWNERS GROVE, ILLINOIS (May 5, 2026) – The New Jersey, Maryland and Washington, D.C. high school associations and John Carroll University announced plans recently to add girls/women’s flag football as officially sanctioned sports.

New Jersey, Maryland and Washington, D.C., will begin sanctioned play in the 2026-27 school year. That will bring the number of state associations sanctioning girls flag football as a varsity sport to 21 (including D.C.).

New Jersey had a two-year pilot program and more than a decade of advocacy from the New York Jets. The Jets also helped drive the sanctioning of girls flag football in New York State in 2024 and the creation of the New York City Public School Athletic League in 2011. In 2025, more than 140 New Jersey high schools fielded girls flag football teams, according to the Jets.

Maryland’s girls flag football is transitioning from emerging status and will conduct three separate state championship class tournaments based on school enrollment. The first official day of practice will be August 12 and the state championship games will be played at the Baltimore Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium in mid-November.

Girls flag football in Maryland has grown from 10 participating schools in 2023-24 to a projected 132 in 2026-27, according to the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association (MPSSAA). That is 66 percent of MPSSAA-member schools and the MPSSAA Board of Control requires at least 40 percent membership participation to receive consideration to conduct a state championship.

Washington, D.C., announced the news of its girls flag football program on the National Mall as part of the kickoff event for the 2027 NFL Draft to be held in the nation’s capitol.

John Carroll University in Ohio has had a rich tradition in tackle football since 1920. Women’s flag football will become part of that history in the spring of 2027 as the school’s 26th varsity sport.

New head coach Felicia Teeter built women’s flag football programs at Bethel University and Pratt Community College in Kansas. She was recently named running backs coach for the John Carroll men’s program and will remain in that role.

At the Division III level, John Carroll will join several other Ohio schools that have added the sport, including Baldwin Wallace, Mount Union, Wittenberg and Heidelberg. John Carroll also added women’s wrestling in 2023 and field hockey will begin play as a varsity sport this fall.