There’s an old joke in the South that there are two seasons — football season, and spring football season.

Soon, it seems, there will be a third with flag football season.

The Mississippi High School Activities Association announced last week that it is adding girls’ flag football to its list of sanctioned sports. Twelve schools will play this spring in a pilot program intended to work out the nuts and bolts, and if all goes well it’s expected to be offered statewide as soon as 2026.

Vicksburg Warren School District athletics director James Lewis said many schools have been enthusiastic about adding it and he expects that to happen. He applied to have Vicksburg and Warren Central included in the pilot program, but they were not selected by the MHSAA.

“I think it’s going to be a hit. People are going to be excited, and it’s going to be something offered for spring 2026,” Lewis said. “We’ll have to map out logistics, who’s going to coach, those kinds of things, but those are low-end hanging fruit. The big things will take care of itself. I’m always excited to offer our students a new opportunity, and especially a new sport for girls.”

Lewis isn’t the only one who sees the potential of girls’ flag football. In the past 10-15 years it has seen huge growth nationwide.

Mississippi will be the 14th state to sanction it as a varsity sport. The list includes Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. There have been pilot programs in 19 other states, including Louisiana.

According to the National Federation of High Schools, nearly 43,000 girls nationwide played high school flag football during the 2023-24 school year — more than double the number from 2022-23.

The sport will be included for men and women in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The New Orleans Saints, who are partnering with the MHSAA on Mississippi’s pilot program, are among several NFL teams who have thrown their support behind youth and high school programs in their respective regions. The Saints sponsored Louisiana’s pilot program in 2024 and the MHSAA’s this year.

For years there have been girls who played football with the boys. Most recently in Warren County, Porter’s Chapel Academy senior Madelyn Whitehead was on the varsity roster for four years as a lineman and Vicksburg High senior Trinity McGloster was a kicker in 2021.

Those examples are not uncommon, but they’re not the norm either. It appears that that’s about to change and football will become a girls’ sport in Mississippi. If it’s as popular as the traditional form, “spring football” might soon have a whole new meaning.

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Ernest Bowker is the sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com