Girls' flag football players at Naperville Central and Naperville North will have one fewer week of regular-season play this fall after the IHSA shortened the schedule to expand the state series.
State Rep. Janet Yang Rohr, D-Naperville, filed House Bill 5799 on Wednesday, June 24, in response. The bill would require the IHSA to conduct an "equity impact review" any time it reduces opportunities in a girls' sport without making an equivalent cut to a comparable boys' sport.
Which Naperville schools are affected
Naperville School District 203's two high schools, Naperville Central (Redhawks, 440 W Aurora Ave) and Naperville North (Huskies, 899 N Mill St), both field girls' flag football teams, as does nearby Benet Academy. Indian Prairie School District 204 schools, Neuqua Valley (Wildcats) and Metea Valley (Mustangs), do not currently offer the sport.
Boys gained a week. Girls lost one.
The schedule change came alongside an expansion for boys: the IHSA grew the boys' tackle football playoffs from 256 to 384 teams for 2026 and moved the first regular-season games up a week to Thursday, August 20. For girls' flag football, the state series grows from two weeks to three, compressing the regular season from six weeks to five.
Teams can still schedule up to 25 games. Yang Rohr says fitting them into five regular-season weeks raises injury and access concerns; the IHSA counters that teams are not required to play all 25 before the state series begins.
"For girls, they can play up to 25 games in a regular season. And so just think about that. To play 25 games in five weeks, that is just cramming a lot of activity in there, a lot of potential for overuse injuries," Yang Rohr told NCTV17.
Yang Rohr also argued that fewer regular-season weeks means fewer chances for college recruiters to see athletes in action before elimination rounds thin the field.
IHSA pushes back
Matt Troha, the IHSA's associate executive director, said the schedule change was made in the best interest of student-athlete health. The IHSA cautioned that legislating its policies rather than working through its member-school process "could create unintended consequences that jeopardize existing flag football programs."
Background
Girls' flag football became an official IHSA sport in 2024, making Illinois the ninth state in the nation to sanction it at the time. Roughly 200 Illinois schools fielded teams by fall 2025, according to the Chicago Bears' youth football program, placing the state in the top five or six nationally for participation.
What happens next
HB 5799 has not been assigned to a committee. If passed, it would apply retroactively to any IHSA policy change made within one year of its effective date, meaning the flag football schedule compression would trigger a mandatory public review with a 30-day comment period. The Illinois State Board of Education could then issue nonbinding findings on gender equity compliance.
The IHSA has not published specific start dates for the fall 2026 girls' flag football season.
