Trojan Elite brings flag football to Newfield

Flag football is coming to Newfield next month. Former Ithaca High School football assistant coach and current Newfield football assistant coach Chad Rylott has started Trojan Elite, a co-ed youth flag football league in partnership with the NFL to bring the game to Newfield.

With youth football participation numbers dropping as more and more teams in central New York move to eight-man football, Rylott is hoping flag football can spark excitement for the sport once again. His 8-year-old son was part of the inspiration to start the league.

“What I’m worried about is [my son] not having an opportunity to play football in the future,” Rylott said. “So, that has a lot to do with it. I’m not a huge fan, personally, of tackle football at this age. I’ve been to a lot of youth football stuff, and the game’s changing. It needs to be fun.”

COVID-19 was also a motivating factor for Rylott, as he realized many kids need an outlet after a difficult year.

“I’m in grad school now to be a school counselor,” he said. “What these kids have gone through in the last year, first of all, we are unaware of the effects that they’ve sustained for mental health. [Football] is my area of expertise, and it’s the least I can do to give back to the community and these kids because they’re in real need to be a part of something and to socialize.”

Rylott explained what he believes is leading to the decreasing popularity of youth football and his potential solution to that.

“Football hasn’t been able to compete with a lot of sports, I think, for a number of reasons,” he said. “Primarily, it’s only one season. You get kids that play soccer year-round. You can play basketball year-round, and they do and they love it. Football has never had an answer to that. I actually think what I’m doing is the best answer to that.”

Pending the success of the fall season, Rylott would like to expand Trojan Elite to the winter and spring in addition to summer camps. The targeted age group spans from kindergarten to sixth grade, and Rylott hopes sign-up numbers are high enough so he does not have to combine grade levels. With Newfield lacking a junior varsity team, Rylott sees flag football as the perfect leadup to modified football in seventh grade.

“We just want to keep the kids interested in football,” Rylott said. “If they’re playing football every fall through sixth grade, then they’ll want to put on pads in seventh grade. We want to give them a two- or three-year build-up of that. I think that’s convincing, particularly for people that may be concerned about the safety of football. That’s powerful.”

To help that progression along, Rylott plans on using varsity football techniques and language in Trojan Elite.

“The tackling progressions that we do on varsity translate directly to the flag grab of NFL flag football,” Rylott said. “It’s the same pursuit; it’s the same breakdown; it’s the same eyes. All that is different is our hands are grabbing a flag instead of grabbing cloth, but the breakdown is the exact same. I intend on making sure that that progression is used every single day.”

With less than a month before the start of the season, the preseason schedule includes a coaching clinic Aug. 22 in which Rylott will teach prospective coaches varsity football terminology to keep coaching styles consistent throughout each level of football. A week later, on Aug. 29, Rylott will run a scouting combine that will feature drills utilized before the NFL Draft. The season will then begin on Sept. 1 and run through Oct. 17.

Rylott explained another benefit of the NFL flag football style, which is the involvement of everyone on the team on offense.

“In the NFL model of five on five, you’ve got one center, and he snaps the ball but he’s immediately eligible for a pass,” he said. “I think that is powerful because for a lot of years with youth football, you’re maybe a different-sized kid, and we stick you on the line while you just want to score touchdowns and run the ball. But because of weight restrictions and all those sorts of things, you can’t. Well, I think we turn kids away [from football] because of that. That’s a mistake on our end.”

Rylott is currently seeking sponsors for Trojan Elite, and more information can be found at clubs.bluesombrero.com/trojanelite. He hopes the flag football league can be something the community can rally around in the future, with the first game scheduled for Sept. 1.