Casey Clausen brings girls flag football and 7-on-7 to Tennessee

Casey Clausen took his Rising Stars 7v7 model from Southern California into Tennessee, pairing girls flag football with boys 7-on-7 in a state that already has real momentum behind the girls game. The former Tennessee quarterback is using his name recognition to push the sport beyond isolated clinics and toward a deeper youth structure built around competition, exposure and development.

That structure already exists in pieces. The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association sanctioned girls flag football beginning with the 2024-25 school year after two pilot seasons in Williamson, Davidson and Montgomery counties. The Tennessee Titans said that made Tennessee the 10th state to sanction girls flag football, and they later said the sport expanded to more than 160 schools across the state in the 2024-25 season. TSSAA also set the 2026 Girls’ Flag Football State Championship for May 14-15 at Richard Siegel Soccer Complex in Murfreesboro, giving the sport a clear postseason target instead of a one-off exhibition calendar.

Clausen’s timing matched a broader national climb. The NCAA added flag football to its Emerging Sports for Women program on January 16, 2026, a step that keeps the sport on a path toward championship status if it continues to grow. The NCAA says an emerging sport must gain championship status within 10 years or show steady growth toward that goal to remain on the list. At the high school level, NFL Play Football says more than 35 states are now offering or piloting sanctioned girls flag programs, and it said more than 100 colleges and universities offered women’s flag football across the NCAA, NAIA and NJCAA in spring 2025.

Rising Stars 7v7, which Clausen founded, describes itself as a premier youth girls flag football and boys 7-on-7 league in Southern California and Tennessee, and says it is dedicated to developing elite athletes through competitive play. That multi-state footprint matters in Tennessee, where school buy-in and league depth will determine whether the sport keeps moving from novelty to routine. The Tennessee opening gives young players a more formal schedule, a state championship, and a clearer line of sight to college interest.

California’s recent surge shows how fast that line can widen. The California Interscholastic Federation reported an 84% increase in girls flag football participation in 2024-25, reaching 19,921 participants in CIF schools. Tennessee is not there yet, but Clausen’s move points in that direction, with a former Vol at the center of a buildout that now has schools, sanctioned competition and a growing recruiting pipeline.