Mayville State prepares for inaugural women's flag football season with Tim Salmon at helm

May 8—MAYVILLE, N.D. — North Dakota is getting its first collegiate women's flag football team.

Mayville State is launching a women's flag football program in the 2026-27 academic year.

The Comets plan to play a 10-game independent schedule in spring 2027 with a roster of 10 to 15 athletes. Home games will be played at Jerome Berg Field. It will be a scholarship sport with the intent to compete in the NAIA by 2027.

"We have scholarship dollars available to anyone who's looking to play flag football as we build this program," Mayville State athletic director Rocky Larson said. "We're excited to join this movement and be the first college in the state of North Dakota to get this thing off the ground."

The NAIA first sponsored flag football as a varsity women's sport in 2021. The Frontier Conference is exploring adoption of the sport, as are other North Dakota colleges.

Tim Salmon, a former quarterback and current assistant coach for the Comets, has been named head coach for the inaugural season.

"I am absolutely thrilled," Salmon said. "I think it's a great opportunity, not just for me, but to grow the sport in general. If you look around the nation, it's such a fast-growing sport. To bring it to North Dakota, as well as add more opportunities for college sports here, I think it's great."

Salmon does not have experience coaching flag football, but Larson described the hire as "a no-brainer" given his leadership skills and strong ties to the university.

Salmon was a four-year team captain at Mayville State and graduated in 2025. He stayed on with the program as an assistant and became the head junior varsity and assistant varsity basketball coach at May-Port-C-G during the 2025-26 season.

"There are a lot of similarities, but there are also enough differences (between football and flag football) that it makes it exciting for me," Salmon said. "I'm going to have to learn some new stuff that I've never really had experience in. But there are also enough similarities there where it's something that I do know, and I'm able to use what I have in my experience playing that style of football."

Salmon has already hit the recruiting trail, looking for prospective athletes across multiple sports.

The Fargo Park District launched North Dakota's first high school girls flag football program this year, but it is still not a widely available sport at most high schools across the state.

There are youth programs popping up as well. Locally, Greater Grand Forks Youth Football introduced girls-only flag football in 2025 for girls in kindergarten to 12th grade.

The Fargo Park District's program, though, is specifically for girls in grades 9-12.

"It's not really a big thing yet in North Dakota," Salmon said. "So really any high school girl that has played other sports. It could be track, it could be volleyball, it could be basketball, it could be softball. Any girl that has some good athletic experience. I don't think it'll be too hard to teach them the game of flag football."

Though the Comets aim to keep their recruiting closer to home, there is a wealth of recruiting opportunities in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Vikings have partnered with 104 schools across the state in an attempt to grow the sport.

Nineteen states and Washington, D.C., have sanctioned girls flag football at the high school level. According to

NFL Flag

, 20 additional states have pilot programs.

The Vikings aren't the only NFL team investing in the sport.

Mayville State has met with the Atlanta Falcons and the Arthur M. Blank Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded by Falcons owner Arthur Blank, and plans to meet with the Vikings to discuss potential grants to help with expenses.

Flag football is expanding internationally as well. The sport will make its Olympic debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games with both men's and women's competition.

The quick growth of the sport, its support from the NFL, its inexpensive nature and the ability to boost female enrollment all factored into the Comets' decision to add flag football.

"It's a great sport to help grow female enrollment and give women another opportunity to compete at the collegiate level," Larson said. "To be able to have a women's side of (football), and the excitement around the Olympics and flag football, we want to jump on board. Let's continue to grow the excitement in the state of North Dakota ... Part of the reason I think flag football is here to stay is because the NFL is behind it.

"They've got the dollars. We want to be on the right side of it, and we want to give women in the state of North Dakota an opportunity to get a college education along with playing flag football."