Player's Guide to NFHS Girls Flag Football Grades 9-12 2026-27

Pants, shorts or skirts (Rule 1-5-1d):

• No pockets of any kind, exposed drawstrings, belts or belt loops.
• One single solid color that clearly contrasts with the flags, except for a legal school or manufacturer's logo.

Covering the flags (Rule 1-5-1f): no clothing and no hair may cover the flag or belt, so that clothing or hair isn't grabbed on a flag pull.

Tooth and mouth protectors: can't have attachments that don't help protect the teeth or mouth, or anything that's a health or safety risk to you or other players.

Eye shade (Rule 1-5-3c(4)): grease or no-glare strips must be a solid stroke with no words, numbers, logos or symbols.

A coach who lets players use illegal equipment after the pregame equipment check is penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct (Rule 9-8-1h).

Flag football is a non-contact sport: any intentional contact by a player on offense or defense is a foul.

Screen blocking is allowed because it's a non-contact, position-based technique:

• The blocker must set up in position before the defender arrives and can't lean into or start contact.
• Keep your arms at your sides, across your chest or behind your back. You can't extend elbows, forearms, shoulders, knees or legs to slow a defender.
• The defender must get a reasonable chance, generally one to two steps, to change direction and avoid you. Screening from the blind side or stepping into a defender at the last moment is a foul.
• Once a legal screen is set, the defender must avoid contact, but the blocker has to be legal first.

No. Under Rule 9-7-4 (revised for 2026-27), a ball in a player's possession can't be batted, stripped, or attempted to be stripped by punching, striking or grabbing the ball, by a player of either team.

Go for the flag, not the ball.

No. Hurdling is an illegal personal contact foul. For 2026-27 it's defined for the first time (Rule 2-18): an attempt by a player to jump (hurdle) with one or both feet or knees foremost over an opponent who is touching the ground with nothing but one or both feet.

In other words, you can't leap feet- or knees-first over a defender who is standing up.

• When the flag or flag belt of the player holding the ball is removed, the ball is dead and the down is over.
• If a fumble first hits the ground inbounds, the ball is dead and belongs to the offense at that spot.
• A forward fumble that goes out of bounds between the goal lines comes back to the spot of the fumble.
• A scrimmage kick that is touched by any player and then hits the ground is dead and belongs to the receiving team at that spot.

High school flag football uses a zone to gain instead of tackle football's line to gain 10 yards away.

Under Rule 5-3, the zone to gain is the next 20- or 40-yard line ahead of the ball's foremost point when a new series starts. When the offense advances the ball to that zone, it earns a new series of downs.

• A game is four 12-minute periods, the same as traditional high school football.
• New for 2026-27 (Rule 3-5-1): each team gets three charged timeouts per half (up from two).
• Unused first-half timeouts don't carry over to the second half, and unused second-half timeouts can't be used in overtime.

Under Rule 8-2-1c, after a touchdown a teammate of the scoring player must remove the scorer's flag in view of a game official. It proves the flag could have been pulled and wasn't tampered with.

If the inspection shows the flag was tampered with:

• the touchdown is taken away,
• the team is penalized 10 yards from the previous spot, and
• the head coach is ejected.

A touchdown is worth 6 points.

After a touchdown and the try, the other team gets the ball at its own 14-yard line. The same applies after a successful field goal, in states that allow kicking. (The start of each half is also a snap from the 14-yard line.)

New for 2026-27 (Rule 8-3-9 exception): if the scoring team is trailing, it may choose to keep possession instead. It takes the ball at its own 20-yard line on 4th down, and all the normal rules for a scrimmage down, including timing, apply.

The NFHS describes this as flag football's version of an onside kick.

New for 2026-27: after a safety, the team whose goal line was involved (the team that gave up the safety) puts the ball in play with a scrimmage kick from its own 20-yard line.

Under the 2025-26 rules, the other team snapped the ball from its own 30-yard line instead.

A scrimmage kick must be declared in advance, the receiving team must get adequate time to substitute, and the kicking team must be set and still before the kick (any movement is a false start).

Mostly, but not entirely. States that play high school flag football under the NFHS Flag Football Rules Book can choose certain options by state association adoption, including:

• Field size: 300 x 120, 360 x 120, 360 x 160 or (new for 2026-27) 300 x 160 feet.
• Kicking: whether place kicks for field goals and tries are allowed (a field goal is worth 3 points where adopted), and whether a kicking tee may be used.
• Number of game officials, and whether goals and hash marks are used.
• Flag style and measurements, as long as flags meet the rules' minimum size.
• Instant replay in state postseason games only (new for 2026-27).

Your state high school association is the only source of binding rules interpretations for games involving its member schools.