The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference\u2019s recent announcement that it would add women\u2019s flag football to its stable of sports for the 2026-27 academic year was greeted with enthusiasm by its three member schools in Maryland, even though Baltimore\u2019s two Historically Black Colleges and Universities said they won\u2019t begin sponsoring teams until the following year.<\/p>\n
Coppin State will look to launch a club team in a few months before promoting that squad to varsity status for 2027-28, athletic director Derek Carter said last week. Morgan State is planning to distribute a student interest survey this fall before deciding whether to start a team, athletic director Dena Freeman-Patton said last week.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, both Carter and Freeman-Patton said they are excited about the prospect of offering women\u2019s flag football to their athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been brewing over the last few months,\u201d Carter said. \u201cCertainly, we\u2019ve heard that the interest level is high. Once the final word came out, most of our students were gone, but this has been talked about. So clearly there\u2019s an interest on our campus and on many campuses.\u201d<\/p>\n
At an administrative level, the MEAC schools must, among other priorities, hire coaches and staff, develop facilities for training and games, and begin recruiting prospects. But Carter said he was pleased to see the conference take charge.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany schools and conferences are bringing on flag football,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the MEAC is doing a good job of getting out on it quickly, but the interest is there nationally. So this is going to be a sport that\u2019s going to grow quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MEAC said that championship formats and additional operational details will be announced at a later date.<\/p>\n
UMES, the third state-based member of the MEAC, announced last week that it would begin competing this upcoming year.<\/p>\n
Mount St. Mary\u2019s recently completed its inaugural season, going 9-16 and defeating Wagner in the first round of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference playoffs before falling to Franciscan in the second round. On May 28, Washington College announced<\/a> it would begin playing at the club level for the 2026-27 year and move to the varsity tier for the spring of 2028.<\/p>\n The NCAA Committee on Access, Opportunity and Impact recently voted to recommend that Divisions I, II, and III add a national collegiate flag football championship beginning as early as the spring of 2028. As of this summer, more than 75 colleges will compete in women\u2019s flag football at the NCAA or club level, surpassing the NCAA\u2019s 40-school requirement.<\/p>\n Women\u2019s flag football is one of the fastest-growing sports in the athletic landscape. It topped 59 other disciplines at last year\u2019s World Games in Chengdu, China, as the most-watched sport across streaming platforms<\/a>, according to the International Federation of American Football.<\/p>\n In the United States, 68,847 girls played flag football for their high schools during the 2025-26 academic year<\/a>, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Between the 2023-2024 and 2024-25 school years, 25,000 more girls signed up for high school flag football, which was offered in almost 1,000 more schools.<\/p>\n In April, the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association sanctioned girls\u2019 flag football as a varsity sport<\/a> for the 2026-2027 academic year. A projected 132 high schools will compete for state championships in three classifications at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore in mid-November.<\/p>\n Freeman-Patton witnessed flag football\u2019s popularity when Morgan State hosted the MEAC Girls on the Gridiron Flag Football Clinic, which attracted about 200 players to Hughes Stadium last July. The Bears will host their fourth consecutive clinic on July 19.<\/p>\n \u201cI was blown away,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I think it\u2019s an awesome time for the MEAC to get involved and be on the ground floor by starting women\u2019s flag football and being a part of the movement.\u201d<\/p>\n Flag football got a significant boost when the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles will introduce the sport in both men\u2019s and women\u2019s formats. The NFL has agreed to allow its players to participate in the Olympics.<\/p>\n While acknowledging the power of the Olympics, Carter credits the sport\u2019s popularity to a more fundamental rationale.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe young ladies grow up watching football,\u201d he said. \u201cNFL and college football is the most popular sport in America, and it allows them the opportunity to participate in football, a game that they\u2019ve grown up on and have been watching with their friends, families, dads. So it gives them an opportunity. I\u2019m very excited about seeing just exactly where this is going to progress.\u201d<\/p>\n Have a news tip? Contact Edward Lee at\u00a0eklee@baltsun.com<\/a>, 410-332-6200 and\u00a0x.com\/EdwardLeeSun<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference\u2019s recent announcement that it would add women\u2019s flag football to its stable of sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":928389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[184,117,2282,123630,4530,7,4148,959,6,169,123631],"class_list":["post-928388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimoreravens","tag-coppin-state","tag-flag-football","tag-football","tag-meac","tag-morgan-state","tag-nfl","tag-ravens","tag-umes"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116810546115919947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/928389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}