SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — The Augustana University women’s flag football team is getting ready to compete in its first game of the season.
Earlier this month, we told you how Augie is partnering with the Minnesota Vikings and five other NCAA schools to launch a new collegiate women`s flag football league.
We caught up with the team to go over the x’s and o’s when it comes to flag football.
It’s one of their last practices before their first game.
Many people say flag football will transform Augustana University women’s athletics.
“It’s just a really exciting time for women and for women at Augustana to be a part of this,” Head coach Kylie Coyne said.
Kylie Coyne, who’s the head coach, says when Augie joined the league, she knew there would be a learning curve.
“Starting with my first practice my goal was just for everyone to learn and play every position, that way they could figure out what they wanted to do, but I could also watch them to figure out where their strengths are,” Coyne said.
The Vikings’ roster includes 23 young women, who are hungry to play and ready learn.
“So we had people throwing passes, we had everyone snapping a ball, everyone ran routes, everyone pulled flags on defense, and by the second practice we started to identify where they were going to play,” Coyne said.
Haylee Erickson is a freshman and can play just about every position on the field.
She says when she heard Augie was joining a college flag football league, she didn’t hesitate to signup.
“I’ve been around football my whole life; my dad played football, grew up watching it all the time and I had a couple of friends who played it where they are from and they’re like oh we should try it, and I was like okay let’s do it,” Erickson said.
But not everyone was so confident.
“The first practice I was really nervous about it, this might not go well, what if I’m bad or this or that, I had all these questions in my head, but it went really well, I had so much fun,” freshman Boyi Lual said.
In some ways flag football is like *regular football, but there are distinct differences.
“The rules are fairly simple, there’s no contact like in tackle football,” Coyne said.
“But it could be, unintentionally…laughs but yeah,” Erickson said.
To down someone, you need to pull one of the flags from the player’s waste band.
And unlike regular tackle football there are only five players on each side of the ball.
“Normal line of scrimmage, we are going to have our center on the line of scrimmage,” Coyne said.
Coach Coyne draws it up for us so you can get a better idea of what it looks like with x’s and o’s.
“With a five on five team, we have a quarterback, a center, and three receivers,” Coyne said.
“We have an x receiver, y receiver, and a z receiver; that’s all they have five on five.”
No other players on the line and no first downs.
You either score or turn the ball over on downs.
“It’s a fast moving game, there’s not a lot of down time like there is in tackle football,” Coyne said.
She says speed is everything, because the field is shorter and the game is only 30 minutes.
“If you’re an x receiver and running routes, you’re going to go up and maybe do a comeback,” Coyne said.
“Our center after they snap the ball, they become a receiver, so technically we have four receivers.”
As part of the partnership, the Minnesota Vikings contributed $140,000 to support the league.
Some of that money paid for Augie’s new uniforms.
Other participating schools include Concordia College Moorhead, Gustavus Adolphus College, Bethel University, the University of Northwestern, St. Paul and University of Wisconsin, Stout.
All of Augie’s game will be played on the road this season, but that’s not tackling their spirits.
They can’t wait to suit up and do what football players do, score touchdowns.
“Like in normal football after they get a touchdown they start dancing, it looks like a really fun thing to do, so I’m excited for that part of it, so if we score a lot of touchdowns or win a game, we’ll start dancing after a touchdown,” Lual said.
Next year the Augie flag football team will move to a seven on seven league with a bigger field.
