Gettysburg, Olivet Nazarene Add Flag Football; Santiago Delays Start
Gettysburg College (PA) will add a varsity women's flag football team and begin competing in the 2027-28 academic year. The school will begin its search for a head coach later this spring. Gettysburg also announced the addition of women's acrobatics and tumbling and women's wrestling, with President Bob Iuliano having this to say:
"We are pleased to introduce these three new women's sports and expand opportunities for our student-athletes. Division III athletics are a powerful complement to the transformational education we provide our students, and taken together ready our students for consequential professional and personal lives. As we continue to position Gettysburg College for an extraordinary third century, this is the right moment to broaden our intercollegiate offerings. These additions represent a meaningful commitment to our athletics program and to attracting the most driven competitors—both in and out of the classroom—to our campus community."
Gettysburg is the first institution from the NCAA Division III Centennial Conference to add a club or varsity team. Pennsylvania is quickly becoming a hotbed for flag football at the collegiate level. Including future teams, the state is tied for second at 34 with California and is only one behind New York for the most teams.
Among NCAA Division III, Pennsylvania already has the most flag football teams of any state at 15. That number will grow beyond 20 in the coming years, with Albright College, Elizabethtown College, Lebanon Valley College, and now Gettysburg, launching programs in the future. NCAA D-II Point Park University will also add flag football in 2026-27.
The NCAA added flag football to the Emerging Sports for Women program in January, which has kicked off a wave of new announcements across all three divisions. The growth is not expected to slow down any time soon, with more conferences and schools announcing programs in the coming weeks and months.
Olivet Nazarene Adding Flag Football
Olivet Nazarene University (IL) is also adding a varsity women's flag football program beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. ONU will begin its search for a head coach immediately. Olivet Nazarene is the first NAIA school from Illinois and the 15th overall in the state to add a program.
"We've been watching this sport grow for a few years now, and it was clear to us that the time was right," said Justin Glenn, Olivet Nazarene University Athletic Director. "There are talented young women all over the country looking for a chance to compete in flag football at the college level, and we want them to know Olivet is ready. We're excited to build something from the ground up here. We didn't want to wait on this one. We believe in the sport, we believe in the young women who are going to play it, and frankly, Olivet is the kind of place where a new program can really take off — on the field and in the lives of our student-athletes."
ONU is the third school from the NAIA's Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (CCAC) to add a varsity program. Calumet College of St. Joseph (IN) and Mount Mary University (WI) have previously announced the addition of flag football. Both programs will begin competing in the 2026-27 academic year, alongside Olivet Nazarene. Saint Xavier University (IL) is in the process of searching for a head coach, but hasn't made an official announcement yet regarding the addition of a flag football program.
The NAIA is set to hold its first invitational tournament in 2026, after elevating the sport to invitational status last summer. The inaugural invitational tournament will take place in Bradenton, Florida, from Wednesday, May 6, through Saturday, May 9. The format will include 4 automatic qualification bids and 4 at-large selections competing in an 8-team double elimination bracket.
The NAIA has 35 varsity programs competing during the 2026 spring season. At least 20 NAIA schools are adding varsity flag football for the 2026-27 academic year, a number that could rise further in the coming months.
Santiago Canyon Delays First Season
Santiago Canyon College (CA) will delay its first season to spring 2027. Santiago Canyon will compete in the Orange Empire Conference of the California Community College Athletic Association (3C2A/CCCAA).
The school originally planned to play during spring 2026 and even named the highly successful Orange Lutheran High School head coach, Kristen Sherman, as head coach last year. Sherman resigned in February, likely leading to the delay. Sherman recently took on an assistant coaching role with the Cal Poly Mustangs, with her husband, Rod, being named head coach.