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.
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.
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.