We present some enumerative and structural results for flag homology spheres. For a flag homology sphere $Delta$, we show that its $gamma$-vector $gamma^Delta=(1,gamma_1,gamma_2,ldots)$ satisfies: begin{align*} gamma_j=0,text{ for all } j>gamma_1, quad gamma_2leqbinom{gamma_1}{2}, quad gamma_{gamma_1}in{0,1}, quad text{ and }gamma_{gamma_1-1}in{0,1,2,gamma_1}, end{align*} supporting a conjecture of Nevo and Petersen. Further we characterize the possible structures for $Delta$ in extremal cases. As an application, the techniques used produce infinitely many $f$-vectors of flag balanced simplicial complexes that are not $gamma$-vectors of flag homology spheres (of any dimension); these are the first examples of this kind. In addition, we prove a flag analog of Perles 1970 theorem on $k$-skeleta of polytopes with few vertices, specifically: the number of combinatorial types of $k$-skeleta of flag homology spheres with $gamma_1leq b$, of any given dimension, is bounded independently of the dimension.
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