UT Arlington Adding Women's Flag Football

The University of Texas at Arlington is adding women's flag football. The Mavericks are the fifth NCAA Division I school to announce a varsity flag football team after Alabama State, Long Island (NY), Mercyhurst (PA), and Mount St. Mary's (MD). UT Arlington will hire a coach later this year and will begin competing during the 2026-27 academic year.

UTA is the first varsity program for the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), but California Baptist and Grand Canyon (AZ) have club flag football teams. The school did not address any conference affiliation, meaning they are likely to compete as an independent. That is highly subject to change depending on future conference membership and any additional NCAA schools that are sponsoring flag football.

The NCAA has taken notice of flag football's growth and is proposing that it enter the Emerging Sports for Women program. Eventually, the sport could become an official NCAA championship sport at all three divisions. The NAIA already has nearly two dozen varsity programs, led by the KCAC and the Sun Conference. The Atlantic East Conference (NCAA D-III), CIAA (NCAA D-II), Conference Carolinas (NCAA D-II), Empire 8 (NCAA D-III), and United East Conference (NCAA D-III) will sponsor flag football for the 2026 season.

Over 85 schools will add women's flag football as a club or varsity sport for the 2025-26 academic year, pushing the total number of teams above 200 across the United States. Earlier this week, NCAA Division I's Radford University announced it would add a club team and the NAIA's College of Saint Mary (Nebraska) announced a future varsity program.

In addition, 15 states have sanctioned flag football at the high school level: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington. Louisiana approved a pilot program earlier this year, while Indiana and Missouri both designated it an emerging sport.