Grace Yang
Intramural flag football season kicked off last night on Miller Field. Originally scheduled to begin Sunday, CampusRec rescheduled the season kickoff due to inclement weather.
Flag football is the second largest intramural sport at NC State and includes seven different leagues: men’s open, fraternity, men’s residence halls, women’s open, sorority, women’s residence halls, and co-rec. This is the first year that sororities are participating in flag football.
Games are played Monday through Thursday from 6 to 11 p.m., and on Sunday from 4-9 p.m. on both the upper and lower portions of Miller Field.
According to Jason Spivey, Assistant Director for Intramural Sports, there are 191 total teams this year, with 136 teams in the men’s and women’s divisions and 55 teams in co-rec.
“We’ve stayed pretty consistent around 185-195 teams in the past four years or so,” Spivey said. “Staying around this number is easy to manage, but I’d love it see it grow.”
Flag football games consist of four 10-minute quarters, with a five minute intermission at the half. The men’s and women’s leagues play seven-on-seven, while co-rec is played eight-on-eight, with four women and four men always on the field. The sport’s rules call for minimal contact, though that isn’t always the case, Spivey said.
“We say minimal contact, but there is contact is all sports,” Spivey said. “[Flag football] is designed to be an offensive game; it comes down to who can score the most.”
Intramural football is meant to be a completely student run activity. There are no professionals, according to Spivey.
“Basically from the time the teams check in to when they complete their game is all students from N.C. State,” Spivey said.
Sam Allen, a junior in biochemistry, plays on two teams, a co-rec team that came in fourth last year as well as a new team in the men’s open division, the JuggerNuts. Allen said he is excited about the competition in the league.
“It’s the closet thing I’m ever going to get to a real playing field,” Allen said. “We are very hard core about our team, we have practice time, and everything.”
Robby Callis, a sophomore in meteorology, represents the Silver Snakes, another men’s open team with championship hopes as it returns all of its players from a year ago.
“Because we had such a great season last year, ranking 13, I think we have a shot at the championship trophy,” Callis said. “We are running through the whole play book Monday, yet we’re not playing our game until Wednesday.”
Not every student participating in intramural flag football takes it as serious as Allen and Callis. For the Food Science Club is all about club activities, said Matt Yurgec, a graduate student in food science, who plays in the co-rec division.
“We’re just out there to have fun,” Yurgec said. “We didn’t win any games last year so we’re hoping to maybe win a game. I’m excited to just throw a football around.”
The regular season, weather permitting, will continue until Sept. 25, when the playoffs begin. The winner of each division will go on to play in a regional tournament in Wilmington the first week in November.
“It’s a great way for our champions from N.C. State to go off campus and compete against other universities from around the State,” Spivey said. “From an administrative standpoint our biggest goal is to be completed with our season and have our champions prior to that tournament so we can represent State.”