As students settle into classes this fall and varsity teams get into the heart of their seasons, there is a group of almost 4,000 students who are embarking on an entirely different quest — the pursuit of an intramural championship.

This fall, Campus Rec is offering flag football, soccer and volleyball leagues as well as the individual, dual-sport leagues of tennis and table tennis.

Daniel Winders, a junior in industrial engineering, said he has been looking forward to flag football and soccer all summer.

“I am real excited. I have had the beginning of [intramurals] marked on my calendar,” Winders said. “My soccer team won men’s open last season, so we are looking to repeat. And flag football is always real crazy because there are just so many teams.”

This season there are 185 flag football teams, 98 soccer teams and 60 volleyball teams registered. However, these numbers are down from last year. Jason Spivey, the assistant director of Intramural Sports, said there were not as many time slots available to schedule games this year because of safety issues.

“For safety reasons, we are trying to schedule the program inside the Carmichael facility hours now,” Spivey said. “From a safety standpoint, we have just been more in line with how we need to respond as an overall facility. That’s something that we wanted to do risk-management-wise for the students to make sure we’re providing that quality service.”

With the limitations placed on the number of teams allowed, there have been many who have not been able to register their teams for a league. This is particularly true for soccer, where 171 teams registered for only 98 spots available.

Junior David Vaught was on a soccer team that had been placed on the waitlist and didn’t get in a league. Although he later switched onto a team that was able to register, he said he is frustrated that Campus Rec cut back on how many students can play intramurals.

“It seems really unfair, because the sign-ups were a lot earlier this year,” Vaught said. “Not many people knew that it was going to be so hard to get a team in. It kind of sucks because that means that there are a bunch of teams that didn’t make it. They could have been real quality teams to play against, but now they’re not even in a league.”

Spivey said he doesn’t believe the new restrictions on the number of teams have been a limiting factor for teams that paid attention to the registration process.

“We haven’t had too many questions or complaints about it,” Spivey said. “I think we did a pretty good job of letting everybody know. Especially through the registration process, we let people know that this is happening, and this is how many teams we can accommodate.”

For some of the teams that did get in, the race for an intramural championship has already begun. Tennis and flag football games started Sept. 10, and the soccer leagues began play Monday. Volleyball and table tennis don’t begin play until Oct. 1. Winders said his sights are set on winning another championship shirt.

“I just want another shirt. They bring so much prestige,” Winders said. “There is nothing that says [big man on campus] like sporting your [intramural] championship shirt around campus.”