The Ogden Plays Flag Football Skills Night, hosted at BLHS from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Friday, offers area youth a free chance to take snaps, learn fundamentals and experience the game firsthand before September, when Ogden launches its first girls flag football league with the Raiders.

Working ahead of the curve, Ogden City Recreation organizer Kami Leatherwood said the new partnership with an NFL franchise has tremendous upside when it comes to staking girls flag football in Northern Utah for the future.

“It’s exciting to partner with them,” Leatherwood said of the Raiders. “They’re invested, and we’re invested with them to have a successful season and hopefully grow girls flag (football) because we’ve heard a lot of positives about it and we want to get ahead on the trend.”

The Silver and Black Flag Football program, designed for youth ages 5 to 14 years old, is expanding into the Beehive State since its 2022 launch in Southern Nevada. This fall, Ogden’s league will feature roughly 16 different teams across four grade levels (1st/2nd, 3rd/4th, 5th/6th, and 7th-9th) for an eight-game season wrapping in mid-October.

Photo supplied, Ty Smith (Ben Lomond High School)

Flag football, specifically youth female leagues, is experiencing a boom with half a million girls ages 6 to 17 years old, according to an NFHS article from last year. Utah, too, isn’t far behind.

The Utah High School Activities Association doesn’t currently sponsor girls flag football as a varsity sport, but the Utah High School Girls Football Association (UHSGFA), founded by Ryan NeVille and Leland Sparks, featured 10 different high school programs last season, according to the league’s official website.

More than 20 states, including Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, have officially sanctioned the game, which debuts as an official Olympic sport in Los Angeles in 2028. Four years ago, the UHSAA adopted boys volleyball as a varsity sport beginning with the 2023-24 school year.

Ty Smith, already tasked with rebuilding BL’s football squad, is interested in bringing girls flag football to the high school level in Utah. This first step – bringing one of the state’s first youth leagues to Ogden – is a signal of things to come, Smith said.

“We just decided to put our heads together,” Smith said. “We’re hopeful that the state of Utah will approve girls flag football for the high school level, hopefully, in 2027. All these girls here — we’ve got a ton of sixth-grade girls playing flag football — they’ll be a step ahead… It’s an exciting time for the sport, and I think it’ll actually, over the course of the years, I think it’s even going to help our numbers in tackle football go up, and I think that’s one reason why the NFL’s been pushing it.”

BL recently collaborated with Ogden City Recreation to introduce girls flag football to local youth through Smith’s Elevation 801 program, which provides free strength, conditioning and athletic development to area junior high students. Smith and his football players volunteered to host the event at BLHS on Friday night.

It goes beyond just breaking a sweat, too. The Friday skills clinic, like with Elevation 801, features real instruction of the Xs and Os behind our favorite plays, Smith said.

“We’re doing an intro to flag football and competition,” Smith said. “We’re going to split up, and I’ll have the varsity football players and the coaches doing different drills and just teaching the basics…

“We’re just basically teaching the game. You talk to a lot of folks about routes, and even us guys and coaches, it was our situation last year (at BL), you’re talking about football, and a lot of the time the verbiage, it goes way over their heads. I think it’s imperative that we start teaching our kids, not just the girls, that they can learn at an early age and get up there and draw it themselves.”

Those interested in the skills camp or the coming fall season may register online at ogdencity.gov, or in person at BLHS on Friday.

Connect with Standard-Examiner sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net, X @ctbecker and Instagram @standardexaminersports.