FAQs

When will first season of Nebraska Flag Football be played?
Spring of 2028

When is the women’s flag football season played and how many games will be played?
Women’s flag football is a spring sport, with a minimum of 12 games per season (maximum is 24). 

Will Nebraska recognize this as a varsity sport and will student-athletes receive scholarships and athletic department support?
Yes, this will be Nebraska’s 25^th varsity sport, 15 for women and 10 for men.  Flag football is the first sport Nebraska has added since beach volleyball in January of 2013.

Women’s flag football students will receive the same student-athlete support services as other Husker student-athletes.

When do you plan to hire a coach?  Will there be assistant coaches?
The goal is to have a head coach in place this summer, hopefully by June or July and the assistant coach in place shortly thereafter.

How many players are on a roster and when will the roster be filled?
Nebraska plans to fill its roster quickly after a coach is hired and hope to have approximately 15 players on a roster by the fall of 2026. The roster will increase to 20 or 25 players for the 2027-28 academic year, our first competitive season.

How many players will be on scholarship in women’s flag football?  When will athletes first be on scholarship?
The plan is to have 15 scholarships available in the first year (2026-27) with the number of scholarships increasing to 20 in year 2 and 25 in year 3. The addition of these scholarships will help Nebraska achieve a long-standing goal of Title IX proportionality.

What schools do you expect Nebraska to play?
With the NCAA’s announcement of flag football as an emerging sport, it is expected that a number of schools will add this as a varsity sport in the coming months. Nebraska can now begin discussing a schedule for our inaugural season, starting with Division I schools with existing flag football programs, and engaging with other programs as they add the sport.

What happens over the next two years before the team plays in 2028?
The focus will be on preparing for our inaugural season in the spring of 2028. That includes recruitment of the initial roster of athletes, followed by practice sessions starting this fall. There is the possibility of informal competitions in the spring of 2027.

There is also a need to identify and build out office space and locker rooms, and schedule competitions for Spring 2028.

Where will you play home games?  How many home games per season do you expect?
To be determined.  Preliminary discussions have focused on a couple of our facilities that might be used for home games. 

What is the size of the playing field?
The playing field for flag football is 80 x 40 yards.

What are the playing rules?
Games consist of 4, 12-minute quarters.

Players wear flag belts with sockets and 2 pop-up flags on either side of their hips.

Teams score 6 points for a touchdown, and after a TD can gain an extra 1 or 2 points with a set play from the 5 or 10-yard line.