A total of 113 schools in Alabama now with competitive flag football:
GDW Analysis:
MONTGOMERY: Progress has been reported by the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA) in the sport of flag football.
When it began in 2021, 50 teams were involved as the state set a tone for this sport to move forward and continue to get more girls on the gridiron where championships are now part of the process.
The 4th season officially begins on August 22. Practice for the 113 schools sanctioned by the AHSAA begins Monday.
Flag Football consists of 51 teams competing in Class 1A/5A with 62 set up in 6A/7A play.
In 2023, a total of 89 schools across Alabama had flag football to its athletic structure.
Twenty four are seeing it for the first time getting the complete total to over the century mark.
Despite the increase, flag football has not caught up in certain locations.
Ten schools in Cullman County do not field a team. Seven counties located Northwest and Southwest of Cullman County are in the same element.
Those counties are Winston, Walker, Lawrence, Marion, Colbert, Franklin, Lauderdale.
Gameday Weekly has had very little conversation of it with nearby schools.
The most challenging item for flag football is to get people that want to play. The numbers may not be where schools can say they want to have this sometime in their future.
Two other sports that are in the fall schedule are volleyball and cross country. The numbers for participants with these sports range around 20 for volleyball as many have a varsity and junior varsity squad and at least 7 on an average running cross country.
Athletes that play girls basketball are in workouts in the fall and here in Cullman, a fall basketball league is available through the SYBL and the Cullman Basketball Complex.
The positive for flag football reigns with schools in certain locations.
Ten are grouped from the Decatur/Huntsville area, competing in 6A/7A.
Three city schools in Birmingham, plus four from Jefferson County make up a region in 6A/7A.
Down in Tuscaloosa County, Brookwood, Central, Hillcrest, Northridge, Paul Bryant and Tuscaloosa County share a region together.
This is where traveling is minimized. A percentage of areas do not have it this way.
JB Pennington is the lone school in flag football from neighboring Blount County. The Tigers are in Region 8 of 1A/5A with Boaz, Lindsay Lane of Athens, Westminster of Huntsville, St. Clair County and Tanner from Limestone County.
Marshall County currently has Boaz and Albertville involved, Gadsden City is out of Etowah County, Tanner and Lindsay Lane represent Limestone County.
With the AHSAA under a new executive director in Heath Harmon, who was principal at Oxford, the quest for flag football is to continue to offer it to other programs and see more teams become sanctioned in the future.
Treating flag football like prep football with a playoff setup and this year's state championship games to be held in early December from Protective Stadium in Birmingham has everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Photo of flag football game at Bryant Denny Stadium, University of Alabama in 2023.
Photo courtesy of the AHSAA.
