An overcast sky above the Vikings’ TCO Stadium didn’t take the shine off Rogers High School.

The No. 13 seed – last place coming into the final tournament – easily handled the No. 4 St. Louis Park High School by a score of 34-18. Even the final tally, though, didn’t do full justice to the flow of the game given that there was some scoring from St. Louis late. Maybe the last place team had a bit of magic.

Pulling off the upset in the tournament’s opening round functioned as a good reminder: football is an unpredictable sport, in no small part due to the single elimination format.

What would follow the Rogers football team was an impressive day of ball from within a sport — flag football — that’s quickly becoming a massive presence in high school athletics. And, indeed, in the broader sports landscape.

Flag Football, in Minnesota and Elsewhere

At this stage, the hype train has been chugging along for quite a while. And why not? Flag football is a tremendous sport.

So much of what is fun in football – the strategy, athleticism, hustle, teamwork, and so on – is baked into the game. Those who love the trenches may be found wanting more, but there’s so much upside in this iteration of the game. Health hurdles (concussions, in particular) are minimized and financial barriers are lowered. Accordingly, the sport is considerably more accessible, creating more players, coaches, and growth more broadly.

Investing in flag is a savvy way for the NFL to kick out the boundaries that usually surround football, allowing the sport to reach into even more nooks and crannies at home and abroad. On an international level, flag football is becoming a juggernaut.

At present, the amount of flag football prophets who foresee ongoing momentum aren’t hard to find. Consider, for instance, the folks at Under Armour, the athletic apparel company.

In an article referring to flag as a “global sensation,” UA brings the history of the sport back to World War II. Deemed “an alternative to tackle football,” the soldiers played flag football as “a safe diversion from the risks associated with football, where players were regularly injured because of the rough nature of the sport.” Flags weren’t used but, rather, there were “towels or cloths tucked into their waist as their flags.”

Flag’s history has many key dates, but note that things are currently moving fast. Some of the rapidity comes from the NFL’s investment effort. What been massive, as well, is the added hype of the 2028 LA Olympics debuting flag football as an Olympic sport (some of the NFL’s best athletes – safety Harrison Smith among them – got scorched by pro flag players, proving that the sport isn’t as easy as assumed).

Consider some of what the NFL said about the game’s growth ahead of the 2028 Olympics: “Played by an estimated 20 million people in more than 100 countries across 6 continents, flag football is a short, fast, non-contact and gender-equal format. It is the most inclusive and accessible format of football, played by people of all ages and genders, with women and girls driving some of the sport’s fastest growth.”

The Minnesota Vikings have been highlighting the growth of the game close to home. A major part of the success flows from the stability of participating teams since every team that played the previous season decided to come back for another year. Something is going well when 100% of teams opt to get back into the league. But then there’s the growth beyond just maintaining the batch of participating squads.

“Now entering its second year of statewide competition,” Lindsey Young writes in a piece on the Vikings’ website, “Minnesota’s league has more than doubled in size, underscoring the Vikings commitment to the growth of the sport and the increasing interest levels in opportunities for female athletes across the state.”

What was 51 teams has swelled to 104 teams. Getting to that spot where so many teams are playing has been helped by the Vikings making funds available. Doing so helps to facilitate the sport, reaching into various aspects of support, such as being able to recruit and develop officials to work the games.

Jeron Schmidt, the Coordinator of Officials for the league, described moving from having zero officials to getting to roughly 100 last year before finishing off around 260 officials by the end of the current season just “to cover the number of games.” Both new officials with zero previous experience and those who have prior experience are being leaned on, Schmidt clarified.

Currently, girls flag football isn’t a sanctioned high school sport, but Schmidt feels as though the Vikings organization has been key in bridging the gap so that these games have the needed infrastructure to play.

“It’s been incredible,” Schmidt said when asked about the Vikings, “from Day 1 they’ve been fully in support of officiating and officiating initiatives.” A key part of the mix has been the ability to snag “the best officials we can” since they can be “compensated well.”

The Vikings continued to stand alongside flag football with TCO Stadium functioning as host of the tournament. Rogers, last place to begin, ended up being a buzz saw of a team on the cusp of a special day.

Rogers High: Humble Beginnings Before a Run to Finals

To begin the day, a cluster of four games took place. A trio of top teams enjoyed the benefit of watching and learning about their opponents, soaking in an early bye to the 2nd Round.

Consider the lay of the land as things got rolling:

Round 1 Games:

• St. Cloud Tech (No. 8) v. Park Cottage Grove (No. 9)
• St. Louis Park (No. 4) v. Rogers (No. 13)
• Cretin-Derham Hall (No. 5) v. White Bear Lake (No. 12)
• Eden Prairie (No. 7) v. Minnetonka (No. 10)
• Centennial (No. 6) v. W-E-M (No. 11)
• BYE: Washburn (No. 1), Rosemount (No. 2), & LA Crescent-Hokah (No. 3)

Rogers quickly set themselves up as the giant killer, a team that played loose before playing confident. Taking down St. Louis was a nice boost of confidence.

“Coming in,” Rogers skipper Trevor Schneeberger explained when asked about his pregame message, “just control the controllables.” After noting that Rogers is playing in its debut season, Coach Schneeberger described an emphasis on “playing incredibly hard” before emphasizing the need to “be a really good teammate” while playing “as hard as we could possibly go.”

Quarterback Alexa Juntunen did admit to gaining “a little more confidence” as the game proceeded. Certainly, seeing a multi-score lead be maintained has a way of blowing courage into one’s backbone, so the added oomph makes a pile of sense.

Juntunen is a multi-sport athlete, with one of her sports being basketball (where she plays point guard) while also being a star in track. Her speed and ability to distribute the ball helped to give her team an edge.

Watching Rogers move into the 2^nd Round involved more of the same: a confident team that had increasing displays of swagger as the game unfolded.

Cretin-Durham Hall came in as the No. 5 team, a favorite to take down the No. 13 team.

Yet again, a multi-score lead was established. Before too long, the clock was like the prey and the Rogers team was like the boa constrictor, sucking life out of the game with every catch and every tackle. The contest was called with time still left on the clock. Final score: 38-7.

Moving into the 3^rd Round, Rogers had to tango with Park Cottage, the No. 9 team that proved to be quite resilient. The quarterback has a cannon for an arm, capable of launching passes vertically in a way that prompts a defense to realize that a lot of blades of grass are threatened on each and every play. So, too, could she scramble, picking up yards with her legs.

Oh, and Park Cottage was on its own Cinderella run, knocking off the No. 8 St. Cloud before overcoming No. 1 Washburn in the 2^nd Round. The exclamation point of the second game contained a full-field pick-six toward the end, complete with an enthusiastic endzone griddy to cap off an impressive tilt.

The semifinals therefore involved No. 13 Rogers looking to continue the magic against No. 9 Park Cottage. Pretty quickly, the game became a contest of equally-matched teams.

In fact, Rogers was playing from behind for most of the second half. The score showed 20-12 for Park Cottage going into the final minute. Eventually, Rogers was down to 4th Down, needing a 1st to keep hopes alive. In what was seemingly a real-time decision rather than by design, Juntunen opted to scramble, breaking loose for a long score that involved her chewing up most of the field. Doing so meant putting that track speed to use. Afterwards, she went back to being a point guard, finding her receiver for a 2-point conversion and ticket into OT.

Each side had the ball in overtime but couldn’t get into the endzone. As a result, the game shrunk down to a football version of a shootout. Each side took turns running a single play from 5 yards away from the endzone. Finally, the third round of the format yielded a winner with Rogers getting a score and Park Cottage failing to do likewise.

A 22-21 victory pushed Rogers into the finals against Rosemount.

Almost immediately, No. 2 Rosemount proved to be a fantastic team.

The quarterback had a side-arm delivery that made her look like Derek Jeter throwing lasers to first base. Her quick release normally involved hitting her target, often for explosive gains. So much of the issue for Rogers was that Rosemount proved capable of attacking all three levels of the defense, completing passes short, intermediate, and deep. So, too, were they capable of turning east/west runs into vertical gains, further exacerbating the issue.

At long last, Rogers had met its match.

The Rogers crew that ran roughshod on higher-ranked teams went into the half down 26-12. Things didn’t improve after the half, with the score becoming more lopsided. The final score showed 45-12 as the game got called with a few minutes remaining.

The Rogers debut season had just finished, leading to a postgame debrief from the head coach while the other side basked in the exuberance of raising the trophy. I walked over to Coach Schneeberger, waiting a moment until he was done chatting with a player who was seeking feedback on being in a better position defensively on a specific snap. He coached her up before stepping to the side for a quick chat.

What was his message to his players? “Three things: proud, honored, honored to be their coach and have a chance to go on this run in our first year. And just gratitude. Thankful. How thankful I am for me to have this opportunity to coach such awesome, awesome girls.”

He went on to clarify that “there’s winning and there’s learning,” the focus for his players even if there was understandable disappointment among the gals.

So, too, did he confirm that the program will be back for another season, getting back to work after a short break to begin laying the groundwork to chase next season’s state title.

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