Girls flag football does not have one rulebook

Most people assume a sanctioned high school sport is the same sport everywhere. In girls flag football that is only partly true. The format is broadly settled; the details, the equipment rules and the calendar are not.

This page records the differences we have confirmed from state association documents. It covers the states we have verified; it is not a national survey.

Is high school girls' flag football 7v7 or 5v5?

Seven on seven. The NFHS rules book, which most sanctioning states follow, is written for seven players a side, and Georgia's own rulebook uses seven as well. Five-on-five is the format of most youth NFL FLAG leagues and of international play, which is part of why the two get confused.

The format: seven on seven, almost everywhere

The NFHS Flag Football Rules Book, first published for 2025-26, is written for seven on seven. It offers three field sizes, one of them a regulation 11-player football field, and leaves a number of other rules to each state association to adopt. For 2026-27 NFHS added a fourth field option, again by state adoption, and standardised that every team starts the game with seven players.

Georgia plays under its own rulebook. The GHSA Flag Football Rules Book also uses seven players a side and a 40 by 80 yard field, which matches one of the NFHS field options. The differences are in the details: four ten-minute periods, a try worth one, two or three points depending on whether it is taken from the 3, the 10 or the 15 yard line, the ball spotted in the middle of the field, and no hash marks. The three-point try from the 15 has no equivalent line on the NFHS field diagrams.

A player moving from Atlanta to Tampa plays the same seven-a-side game. What changes is the rulebook behind it, the scoring options and, as the sections below show, the equipment and the calendar.

Washington plays NFHS rules with exceptions, and its jamboree competition is limited to seven on seven for member schools.

The national rulebook is behind the sanctioning wave

Pennsylvania's statewide girls flag football rules interpreter reported in July 2026 that the NFHS Flag Football Rule Committee would not publish an officials manual or a casebook for the 2026-27 academic year, and that he would produce a case book for Pennsylvania himself for the 2027 season.

This is worth sitting with. States are sanctioning the sport faster than the national rules body is producing the materials needed to officiate it. The practical result is that individual states are writing their own interpretive guidance, which over time produces exactly the divergence this page documents.

Every state adds its own amendments

Even states that adopt NFHS rules make choices within them. The NFHS book leaves a set of rules — 20 in the 2026-27 edition, according to both TSSAA and Maryland's MPSSAA — to be decided by each state association: which of the field sizes to use, how many officials, whether kicking is allowed, the style of flag, and others. Each association publishes its own choices.

Confirmed examples:

• Tennessee publishes a TSSAA adoptions document alongside the NFHS book
• Colorado publishes Colorado State Rule Adoptions in its annual bulletin, and requires flag belts and uniforms to follow NFHS guidelines from the 2026-28 cycle
• Washington plays NFHS rules "with exceptions", and a 2026 amendment moved varsity play to thirty-minute running-clock halves
• New Jersey codifies the sport in the NJSIAA Constitution, applying National Federation rules unless modified there
• Hawaii sets an 80 by 40 yard field and its own overtime procedure by state adoption, and from 2027 requires three flags per player
• Mississippi plays National Federation rules alongside state policies, including a mercy rule that ends a game once a team leads by more than 35 points in the second half
• Pennsylvania allowed rules exceptions for its inaugural 2026 season; those expired, and schools must now comply with NFHS rules as written

That last point is a pattern worth knowing: associations commonly soften rules for a first season and tighten them afterwards. A coach reading last year's guidance may be reading rules that no longer apply.

Equipment rules diverge sharply

Georgia mandates protective headgear. From 2026 every player on the field must wear soft-shell headgear or a protective headband, and the requirements are unusually specific: independently tested with a 5-star rating from the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab, from a manufacturer carrying at least $5 million in product liability insurance, available at scale through multiple retail channels. GHSA deliberately names no brands, referring only to "soft-shell headgear" or "protective headband".

Pennsylvania has ruled NFL Flag footballs illegal for PIAA competition, because they do not meet the measurement and marking standards. The legal ball is youth size 7 or a women's football, 12 to 14 ounces, tan, leather or rubber, with 8 or 12 laces. From 2028 the NFHS Authenticating Mark will be required. Jerseys carrying NFL team logos are also not legal.

If your programme bought equipment on the assumption that the sport's most visible national brand would be acceptable, check your state's rules.

The season is not the same anywhere

Among states we have verified:

• Winter: Nevada, with a regular season from late November
• Spring: Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Tennessee, Hawaii, Mississippi, Oregon (emerging)
• Fall: Alabama, Arizona, California, North Carolina, Kansas, Maryland, Illinois, Georgia, Colorado, Alaska, and in emerging status Indiana and Montana

Washington plays all three. WIAA Article 39 lets schools choose a main season running late February to mid-May, or one of two alternate seasons, August to November or November to February.

This affects more than scheduling. It determines whether a player can compete in another sport, when college coaches can watch her, and whether a state's players are in season when national events are held.

Classification structures

• Illinois runs a single state series with no classifications at all
• Colorado runs 4A and 5A
• Maryland runs three classifications by enrollment
• Tennessee runs two classes across sixteen regions
• Florida runs four classifications, up from two in 2024
• Georgia runs five divisions organised on an area basis
• New Jersey uses two enrollment groups across two geographic sections
• Nevada runs 5A and 4A in Southern Nevada, with smaller classes folding into the 4A championship series

What this means if you are a coach or a parent

Read your own state association's documents rather than a national explainer, including this one. The specific things worth checking before a season:

1. Whether your state plays NFHS rules or its own
2. Whether your state has published adoptions amending those rules
3. Whether your equipment is legal in your state, particularly the ball and headgear
4. Whether last season's exceptions have expired

Each state page on this site links to the association materials we used. Those are the documents that actually govern play.

Compiled from state association rules books, handbooks, constitutions and season bulletins. See methodology for how we source entries, and how a state sanctions for the decisions behind these rules.