Kansas Girls Flag Football: Rules, Season, and Stats

Kansas girls flag football is a KSHSAA-sanctioned fall activity. Teams play a state-governed regular season under the NFHS flag football rulebook, and the season ends in a KSHSAA state championship with an adopted postseason bracket.

This page covers the current Kansas structure, the rules and compliance items a head coach has to clear, the statistics worth keeping, and the optional manual MaxPreps workflow.

Kansas status at a glance

The Kansas State High School Activities Association governs girls flag football as a sanctioned fall activity.

• KSHSAA approved sanctioning following a pilot that involved 28 Kansas high schools and averaged 24 athletes per roster. The Board of Directors vote was 61 to 1.
• High school teams may play six to ten regular-season games, not counting the state series.
• The activity is built on the NFHS flag football framework, with state-adoption options reserved to KSHSAA.
• The season concludes with a KSHSAA state championship.

Three things matter most for a coach: work from the current KSHSAA materials rather than a recreational rulebook, confirm the state-adopted options before the first game, and score every game with the same player names, jersey numbers, and stat definitions.

How the KSHSAA season and postseason work

KSHSAA identifies girls flag football as a fall activity, and the regular season sits inside the six to ten game allowance. Middle school teams are limited to six games in a season.

The KSHSAA Executive Board adopted the postseason structure for the first sanctioned season in its meeting minutes. In plain terms:

• One classification in the first sanctioned season.
• A 32-team bracket, with 16 qualifying schools on the east side and 16 on the west side.
• The top four seeds on each side host the four-team regional groupings, pairing 1-8-9-16, 2-7-10-15, 3-6-11-14, and 4-5-12-13.
• The higher seed hosts each quarterfinal.
• The semifinals and the championship are played at a single state site.

The championship site and the live calendar belong to KSHSAA, so check the association's current championship and media information and the KSHSAA handbook for seeding dates, host assignments, and any bracket updates before publishing anything to your community.

Practical questions a Kansas staff should settle early:

• How many games will the program schedule inside the six to ten game range?
• Who submits rosters, results, and postseason materials for the school?
• Which students are balancing flag football with another fall activity, and what do the KSHSAA dual-participation provisions require?
• Which record will the athletic director use if seeding comes down to a comparison between programs?

Which rules control the Kansas game

KSHSAA built the activity on the NFHS flag football rules, which gives Kansas a national base while preserving state choices. Where the KSHSAA adoption differs from the national book, the KSHSAA adoption controls the Kansas game.

Two current NFHS items are worth reading before the first practice. The rules now standardize that all teams start the game with seven players, and the committee added a fourth field option that state associations may adopt. Confirm which field configuration Kansas uses at your site.

For a program coming out of the pilot, focus the rules meeting on the items that can disrupt a game:

• Pilot habits versus sanctioned rules. Identify any local procedure the team used before sanctioning and confirm whether it survived into the current rulebook.
• Field responsibility. Assign someone to verify the adopted field option, zone markers, team areas, and try lines at every home site.
• Scoring choices. Confirm the try and conversion options in use, then make sure the scorer knows how each result should appear in the box score.
• Overtime and game-ending procedures. Review them before an elimination game, not during one.
• Legal equipment. Check flags and uniform contrast before warmups.

The NFHS rules overview for high school coaches walks through the national framework in more detail.

Complete the KSHSAA head-coach requirement

KSHSAA requires the head coach of each listed sport or activity, including flag football, to pass an annual open-book rules exam. The current policy, adopted by the Executive Board, sets out four things a coach and athletic director should know:

• The exam is taken on the KSHSAA website using login information provided by the school's athletic director.
• A passing score is 90 percent or higher.
• The exam must be passed by the established deadline, which is typically before the first competition date. Check the current KSHSAA calendar for the exact deadline.
• The head coach is not eligible to coach a team in competition until the exam is passed.

KSHSAA also provides an initial attempt and one retake within the published window, and additional attempts carry a fine. Assistant coaches may take the exam but are not required to.

What one person should score

A complete record starts with the score, but it should not end there. At minimum, keep:

• Final score and scoring by period.
• Passing attempts, completions, touchdowns, and interceptions thrown.
• Rushing attempts and rushing touchdowns.
• Receptions and receiving touchdowns.
• Flag pulls and assisted flag pulls.
• Sacks and pass breakups.
• Defensive interceptions and returns.
• Try attempts and successful conversions.
• Safeties and defensive touchdowns.

If your staff can reliably score yardage, add passing, rushing, receiving, and interception return yards.

A smaller set recorded the same way every week is more useful than a long stat sheet that changes with the scorer. Flag Football Stats: What Coaches Should Track breaks down the full list, and the printable 7v7 girls stat sheet works as a paper backup.

Set up and review the season in StatHawk

StatHawk is a coach-operated iPhone and iPad app for scoring flag football games. One person scores the game live, and the scored plays produce the live score, play-by-play, the game box score, player and team statistics, and season totals.

Before the season:

1. Enter the roster once with the spelling and jersey numbers your school uses everywhere else.
2. Choose Classic Mode or Yardage Mode and stay with it. Classic Mode records outcomes and counting stats without requiring yardage. Yardage Mode adds offensive yardage on supported plays and does not infer exact field position.
3. Assign one person as the primary scorer and one backup.

On game day, score the game live, then review before finalizing: confirm the final score, every touchdown and try, quarterback attempts against completions, receiver attribution, and defensive takeaways. A short review keeps one scoring mistake out of the season totals.

GameView is a public, read-only browser link. Parents and fans open it with no account, no login, and no app download. Standard PDF game and season reports and completed-game play-by-play CSV exports are separate outputs.

For a season-long routine, see how to track girls flag football stats all season and the NFHS high school stat workflow.

If your school uses MaxPreps

No current KSHSAA source requires Kansas programs to report player statistics through MaxPreps, so treat this as optional. For Kansas programs that use MaxPreps, the workflow is manual and coach-controlled.

For an eligible finalized high school game, StatHawk exports a pipe-delimited .txt player-stat file, commonly called the MaxPreps file. The coach saves or shares the file, then manually imports it through MaxPreps Team Admin. The file does not set the final score or game result. There is no sync, API connection, or automatic upload.

The sequence is:

1. Finalize and review the eligible high school game in StatHawk.
2. Export the MaxPreps file.
3. Sign in to MaxPreps Team Admin.
4. Open Schedule and the game's stat-entry workflow.
5. Enter or verify the final score or box score, then choose Save and Import Stats.
6. Choose and import the StatHawk file.
7. Select Calculate Team Totals, then Publish and Continue.

Standard PDF reports and play-by-play CSV exports are not the MaxPreps import file. The full walkthrough is in How to Export Flag Football Stats to MaxPreps, and the partner background is in StatHawk is an official MaxPreps stat import partner.

StatHawk is not an official KSHSAA platform, and KSHSAA does not endorse or require it. It is a tool a coach chooses.

Official Kansas resources

• KSHSAA sanctioning announcement
• KSHSAA Board of Directors minutes
• KSHSAA Executive Board minutes with the adopted postseason plan
• KSHSAA championship and media information
• NFHS flag football rules
• StatHawk state sanctioning tracker

FAQ

Is girls flag football sanctioned in Kansas? Yes. KSHSAA sanctioned girls flag football as a fall activity following a pilot that involved 28 high schools and averaged 24 athletes per roster. The Board of Directors approved it by a 61 to 1 vote.

What does the Kansas postseason look like? KSHSAA adopted a one-classification, 32-team bracket for the first sanctioned season, with 16 qualifiers on the east side and 16 on the west. The top four seeds on each side host regional groupings, the higher seed hosts each quarterfinal, and the semifinals and championship are played at a state site.

How many games can a Kansas high school play? Six to ten regular-season games, not counting the state series. Middle school teams are limited to six.

Does the head coach have to pass a KSHSAA exam? Yes. The flag football head coach must annually pass the KSHSAA open-book rules exam with a score of 90 percent or higher by the established deadline, which is typically before the first competition. The coach is not eligible to coach in competition until the exam is passed.

Which rulebook should a Kansas coach bring to the field? Start with the current KSHSAA materials. They use the NFHS framework and also carry the Kansas choices that control competition.

Do Kansas coaches have to use MaxPreps? No KSHSAA requirement has been verified. If your school reports player statistics through MaxPreps, StatHawk exports the MaxPreps file for an eligible finalized high school game and the coach imports it manually through Team Admin.

Should every Kansas team keep yardage? Only if the scorer can do it consistently. Classic Mode is appropriate for fast scoring and counting stats. Yardage Mode adds passing, rushing, and receiving yards.