LAND O’ LAKES — Alex Smith sure knows how to come up big in football.

First, it was making catches as a star tight end for Stanford, then for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After his playing days ended, he spent seven years in the Bucs’ front office as a pro scout and assistant director of pro scouting, earning a Super Bowl ring with Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl LV win.

Now, as founder and president of Under The Lights Flag Football — a league he brought to the area for Friday evenings at Land O’ Lakes Heritage Park — he’s still coming up big.

His league, which kicked off its inaugural winter season in January, has already doubled in size. Smith has also added a second location at Starkey Ranch District Park in Odessa.

The flag football boom is here.

“I think the girls are a big factor in that,” Smith said. “A lot of girls are gravitating toward the sport, sometimes being limited to the other sports. Now, having this opportunity (with Under The Lights), we’re getting a lot of talented athletes out there, with the biggest opportunity for growth. The location at Starkey just kind of fell into our laps and about 200 kids came out without barely even marketing that we were at that location.

“Flag football, in this area just keeps growing.”

Flag football is wildly popular in Central Pasco, thanks to the Pirate Bay Flag Football League that plays out of Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex on weekends. That league championed the sport’s addition as an official varsity sport at local high schools. Smith, looking to stay involved in football-related activity after leaving the Bucs, figured there was still plenty of demand.

The difference: His league plays Friday nights under the lights.

“Kids were coming all the way from Seven Springs (in New Port Richey) just play at the LOL league,” Smith said. “It’s just, the sport of it all, flag over tackling, it’s on TV now, it’s a global brand and push from the NFL with professional teams, the fact that it’ll be in the Olympics, it’s just so popular.

“Plus with our league, we’re getting plenty of kids who want to play on Friday nights, either because they have other sports or it lines up well for parents, or they just like playing under the lights. Right now, there is no shortage of players.”

In the winter season, Smith and his staff of volunteer coaches and parents started with about 250 kids. In spring, enrollment jumped to 450. Now, with the fall underway, there are more than 500 players.

“It just happened overnight,” Smith said with a chuckle.

The league has six divisions determined by grade level: pre-K through kindergarten coed, 3-5 coed and 6-8 coed, plus two all-girls divisions: 3-5 and 6-8. Each team is designated with an NFL team logo and colors.

If there is a “problem” with this quick growth, Smith said, it’s finding enough coaches for the ever-growing league. Same with finding enough referees or volunteers to help on league nights.

“It is tough,” Smith said, “but usually, we can get parents to step in if we ask nicely enough, or a volunteer will step in and take over. We’ve been fortunate so far.”

So fortunate that Smith is already eyeing a third location — Wesley Chapel, with the most logical site at Wesley Chapel District Park off Boyette Road. People are already asking him when the league will head east to Wesley Chapel.

“That’s on the radar,” Smith said. “The fact that there are established leagues already and they’re coming to us just speaks volumes to the kids that want to play, to the kids that are moving out here (to Pasco County), that the demand is there.

“The plan is to keep growing. As long as people want flag football, we’re going to keep growing.”