Ottawa Women’s Flag Football HighLights


By FirstDown PlayBook on May 17, 2022

Anyone who was in attendance at the NAIA Women’s Flag Championship where Ottawa defeated Thomas 24-20 in Atlanta walked away impressed. It was fast and it was competitive. The talent level that we witnessed was a statement, not only about that weekend, but about the game of women’s flag football as a whole.

Today we want to focus on three of the four touchdowns scored by the Ottawa women in the championship game on Saturday vs Thomas. Before we do that though, we want to mention the defense that was played in this game. There was a lot of situational flag football in this game and others in Atlanta.

Both teams made the other work for every yard that they found in the game. Thomas actually found the end zone with their first play from scrimmage on a long pass play. From that point on though, Ottawa played good defense. Both teams came up with key goal line stands at critical points in this game.

We Are Highlighting TD’s Here But Make No Mistake, There Was Great Defense In This Game Too.

Thomas actually scored one of their touchdowns on a pick 6 in the second half. FirstDown PlayBook was paying close attention to the different schemes used in Atlanta. We will come back at a later point and dissect some of those. For now though, let’s look at these three Ottawa Braves touchdowns.

Ottawa’s first touchdown came on a bit of a scramble drill, but the second touchdown that you see above was just well executed. They ran curl flat concepts with their slots and outside receivers. Thomas was in a two deep coverage. Braves Center, Alyssa Linkous, did the rest as she ran a great seam route. Madysen Carrera found her one yard deep for the touchdown.

The third Ottawa touchdown was what we call an “Orbit” concept or a 93. The Braves were in a 3×1 formation. The outside receiver ran an outside release fade route and the slot ran a 10 yard out. The inside slot also released to the flat. With the fade route getting an outside release, the Thomas safety could not get there in time to break up the touchdown throw.

Ottawa’s Carrera Threaded The Needle For The Game Winner

The final and game winning touchdown came late in the game on the Thomas 5 yard line. To say that Carrera threaded the needle on this is an understatement. This play looked to be a good old fashioned slant flat to both sides of the 2×2 formation.

Ottawa released their protection back to the left. This and the the flat route by the slot was designed to widen the defense for the slant route by #2 Bailey Hodgins. This worked, but the window that Carrera found was NFL red zone small. Credit to Hodgins for holding on as the Thomas corner and safety were closing fast.

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Like any other good football game, there were tons of great plays that did not result in scores. FirstDown PlayBook will be studying these games a lot over the next several months. Until then, hats off to Liz Sowers and her Ottawa staff and team for a job well done. It is hard to repeat when everyone is aiming for you. It is only going to get harder and harder as Thomas University and many others continue to step up their game. This should be fun to watch!