A news report in the Rutland (Vt.) Herald says the North Atlantic Conference schools with football are pushing Castleton State to join them.

Seems like a good move for the school, which had 1,358 full-time undergraduates the last time we got reliable numbers. When the only hurdle cited is lack of a football field, shoot, that’s relatively easy to overcome.

“We have received permission to solicit other NAC schools and independents,” Husson College athletic director (ed. note: and football coach) Gabby Price said. “Letters will be going out to all of these schools.

“Certainly Husson, Mount Ida and Becker have an interest in this. It would be great to have a conference of New England and New York state schools.”

There are only two Division III football programs in Vermont: Middlebury and Norwich.

With four teams already in the conference for football, Becker, Husson, Maine Maritime and Mount Ida, the league would be eligible for its own automatic bid if it pulled in three other football programs, whether as associate members or full members, or if three conference schools added football. SUNY-Maritime, an independent playing varsity football this fall for the first time, could be the fifth member. Morrisville State is a possible too, though it won’t be eligible for the playoffs until 2010.

With those two, the NAC would only have to pull one more member (aside from Maine Maritime) out of the NEFC to reach an automatic bid.