Sprint football, formerly called lightweight football, is a varsity sport played by United States colleges and universities, under standard American football rules. The sport is currently governed by the Collegiate Sprint Football League.
Contents
In sprint football, players must maintain a weight of 172 lb (78 kg) or less and a minimum of 5% body fat to be eligible to play. The end result of these weight restrictions is that, unlike conventional collegiate football which places a premium on body weight and strength, sprint football emphasizes speed and agility.
Competition
As of 2016, eight schools field teams in the CSFL; of the eight, five are private universities (two being schools in the Ivy League, and one being a for-profit institution) and two are national military academies; currently Mansfield University of Pennsylvania is the only state university or college playing sprint football. All eight teams are located in the northeastern United States. Four teams have been added since the 2008 season; none of the new additions has a full-size varsity football team. The newest addition in 2015, Chestnut Hill College, is likely to be on a probational basis for the first year. The other four teams (all of which have been in the CSFL since 1957) have full-size football teams that compete in NCAA Division I—the service academies in the FBS, and the Ivy League schools in the FCS. Each team plays a seven-game season. It is not uncommon for the CSFL teams to play against full-size junior varsity or club football squads from other schools in the early part of the season (in 2015, for instance, Navy faced the Longwood Lancers). In addition, Army, Cornell, Princeton, and Penn all hold alumni games in which sprint football alumni return to campus for a full-contact scrimmage against the varsity squad. The alumni games serve the dual purpose of raising funds to support the team and maintaining alumni interest in the program. Typically, the alumni have to donate a monetary weight penalty (e.g., $2 per pound) for weighing above the 172-pound limit.
As of 2016, only one charter member of the league remains, the Penn Quakers. The Princeton Tigers dropped the sport after 2015, following sixteen consecutive years of winless seasons (an organized football record) and changes in league membership, and shifted its resources to club football. A number of other Ivy League schools have historically had sprint football teams, including the Yale Bulldogs, Harvard Crimson, and Columbia Lions, all of whom had dropped the sport many years earlier.
The CSFL does not sponsor playoff or bowl games (a tradition due in no small part to the Ivy League schools, who, like the rest of the Ivy League, abstain from all football postseason play to encourage academic performance). The season championship is decided solely by the regular season record; if multiple teams are tied atop the standings, all of them share the championship. Since Navy's and Army's respective admissions to the league, those two schools have dominated the league; of the 70 seasons of lightweight football since Navy joined, they and/or Army have won the league title in 63 of them.
Weight limit
CSFL rules require that players must weigh no more than 172 pounds (78 kg). They must also have a minimum body fat content of 5.0% by weight and a urine specific gravity of 1.020 or less. Players with a body fat content of under 5% must weigh no more than 165 pounds (74.8 kg). The purpose of the body fat requirement is to discourage players from losing excessive weight. League rules specify official weigh-ins four days and two days before each game. Players are allowed to gain weight back after meeting the weight limit but must remain under 177 pounds (80.3 kg) to practice with the team. Body fat and urine are tested once during the preseason.