BELTON, Texas – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor athletic department will expand to 17 varsity programs with the addition of women's flag football beginning in the 2026-27 academic year, the university announced Friday.
All six members of the American Southwest Conference will sponsor women's flag football with conference play to begin as soon as permitted by the NCAA.
"As the popularity of women's flag football increases nationwide, adding women's flag football allows us, as a unified conference, to continue providing opportunities for student-athletes," UMHB Vice President for Athletics
Dr. Hunter Sims said. "We are looking forward to growing the game with our fellow ASC members."
Women's flag football is rapidly expanding nationwide, providing more opportunities for women in intercollegiate athletics. It is also being sponsored by the National Football League and has been added as a sport for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. Flag Football has seen a 63% increase in participation among young women over the last five years, with more than 500,000 athletes now playing before college.
The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics made a recommendation to all three NCAA divisions earlier this year to sponsor legislation to add flag football to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program. Once in the program, flag football must have a minimum of 40 total schools across all divisions sponsoring the sport at the varsity level and meet the minimum contest and participation requirements to be considered for championship status. Flag Football will be UMHB's third sport to go through the Emerging Sports for Women program, following Beach Volleyball and Acrobatics & Tumbling. The vote to add flag football to the program will take place at the NCAA Convention in January 2026.
Flag football is a non-contact sport that combines the strategy and excitement of traditional football. The sport is played with seven players on each side of an 80-yard field. Roster sizes vary between 15-20 athletes with most teams competing in the spring semester.
UMHB will begin recruiting student-athletes for the program immediately with plans to hire a head coach in the near future. For more information or to express interest, please contact UMHB Athletics at flagfootball@umhb.edu.
