New Jersey Institute of Technology to Sponsor Division I Lacrosse?

NJIT currently boasts a club program that plays in the National College Lacrosse League, a league that features many club teams from schools that sponsor varsity lacrosse at the NCAA level (regardless of division). From what's available on the Internet computing machine, the Highlanders don't appear to have much lacrosse history: The team played one game in 2012 (an 18-2 loss to Columbia) and went 1-5 in 2013, beating Rutgers-Camden in a 3-2 overtime thriller (please note: I have no idea if that game was actually a thriller, but it was definitely a thing that happened at a place with people). NJIT boasted 27 players for the 2013 competition season, but only 23 appear to have been issued uniform and pinnie numbers.

Otherwise, NJIT lacrosse doesn't seem to exist in any significant capacity, which is odd considering that the school is making implicit overtures about racing at Division I lacrosse in just about 12 months:

The New Jersey Institute of Technology, an NCAA Division I member, just posted an opening here for the full-time, 12-month position of head men's lacrosse coach. The new program is slated for varsity status in the 2015 season.

NJIT is a public technological institution located University Heights Newark, New Jersey. It has an enrollment of about 10,000 graduate and undergraduate students. The Highlander athletic program (www.njithighlanders.com/) sponsors more than 15 varsity and several club sports.

Firing up the Mystery Machine, it turns out that NJIT made a posting for this job opening in mid-August, omitting a start date for the program at the Division I level but stating that the candidate must manage and run "a successful Division I men's lacrosse program."

If -- and that's a big "if" until something more concrete emerges -- NJIT is truly moving towards a Division I reality, the Highlanders are going about this in a weird way. Outside of not even issuing a press release illustrating the school's plans to play at college lacrosse's highest level with little lacrosse history to support the transition, the school is -- potentially -- attempting to make the leap with only one summer recruiting cycle at its disposal. This is fairly insane, the kind of bonkers approach that usually involves using grilled cheese sandwiches as transmittal devices to contact spacecraft orbiting Earth as vessels of refuge should the robot apocalypse occur without warning.

NJIT athletics earned across-the-board active Division I membership beginning in 2009. The majority of the school's programs play as an independent following the folding of the Great West Conference.