Team AFC and Team NFC play during the NFL High School Girls Flag Football Showcase, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025 in Orlando, Fla. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Content Services for the NFL)

Girls flag football, sanctioned by the PIAA, is set to officially begin in spring of 2026, and the format for which it will be played took some steps forward at the summer meeting.

“We had a number of things that we had to adopt to start getting the balloon off the ground,” PIAA Executive Director Robert Lombardi said. “The field, field markings, whether we’re going to have the kicking game involved, the size of the ball, the number of flags, are we going to use flags that are tearaways or are we going to use the pop-socket?”

One of the more notable decisions made about the future of the sport in Pennsylvania is that there will be no kicking — which was made on a motion by PIAA football steering committee member Ralph Cecere, the District 6 representative, and approved by an 11-0 vote.

“We did not approve kicking,” PIAA Associate Executive Director Patrick Gebhart said. “Some states kick extra points but not field goals. We did not approve that. That will not be part of our flag game at this point in time.”

More clarification of the rules will come with the new flag football exclusive steering committee currently being formed.

“The committee recommended to the board to establish a flag football specific committee,” Lombardi said. “We’re in the process of doing that, and we’re also going to get a flag football statewide rules interpreter. We want to treat flag football like we would any other sport.”

Some of the rules are already in place like a 35-point margin before a running clock, and three officials will govern each game.

“Flag is different if you aren’t familiar with the rules,” Gebhart said. “It’s 20 yards for a first down, so every 20 yards you get four plays to make a first down. There is only a box. There’s no chain or anything like that. If you are short of the 20, it doesn’t matter if it’s third-and-18 or third-and-5, you have to get to the next 20 for the first down.”

The first season will start next spring alongside fellow girls sports, softball and track and field.

“The season will be the spring season and will mirror our other spring seasons in 2026,” Gebhart said. “It starts March 10 if I am not mistaken. There will be 18 contests to be permitted over the 10 week season. There will not be a championship in 2026, but in 2027, the championship will be held the weekend after Memorial Day, the weekend after our track and field championships.”

District 5 representative Paul Leonard expressed concern that future popularity of girls flag football could destroy interest in track and field in his district.

Leonard said Somerset is considering a flag team, but the official listings on the PIAA website list zero District 5 or District 6 schools among the 74 playing girls flag football currently.

“What we had given to us was well over 100 schools that plan to sponsor,” Lombardi said. “I think that number will be updated as we go through our classification process this October, because I think a lot of schools haven’t taken the time to go in and check the box that they are sponsoring it.”

District 12 near Philadelphia has 22 school districts on the PIAA site, and nearby District 1 has 17 schools. The WPIAL near Pittsburgh has 14 schools and District 8, also near Pittsburgh, has eight. Beyond that, just one District 3 school and one District 11 school are listed.

“If it would drop drastically low after we started the inaugural season like we have with gymnastics where we’re down into the teens, then that would get people’s attention,” Lombardi said. “But I don’t think we’re going to have that problem. I think we’re going to expand more.”