A national championship will be decided when the Miami University club football team takes the field Saturday night in Salem, Va.

Miami enters the game undefeated at 8-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country to decide the first-ever championship of the National Club Football Association. Miami’s opponent will be Copeland State-Baltimore. Game time is 7 p.m.

Head coach of the team is Jay Fry, a retired Oxford resident with long ties to Miami sports. The Miami club team is in its sixth year. The team’s record was 2-3 in its first year, 2007, but went to 3-3 the next year and have winning records every year since — 5-2 in 2009, 6-2 in both 2010 and ‘11 and this year’s 8-0 regular-season record.

“We’ve improved since six years ago,” Fry said. “We have had several players off the varsity come to the club.”

Senior Eric Kenter, the team’s center and club president, will be playing his final game Saturday.

“This is really special,” Kenter said. “Everything has come full circle, playing club football and being president. In my freshman year, my ‘Aha moment’ came when I made the team. I saw the president and said I wanted to do that.”

He said club football and it has been a big part of his college experience.

“Club football, in general, is growing. More and more teams are popping up,” he said. “For me, coming into Miami, it was finding a niche. As a freshman out of high school, I had played football and there was still a hunger to play the game. It was a second chance to do something I love. It defined my college experience. I will miss it, but it’s time to pass the responsibility on to the next guy. It’s been good to me, but it’s time to stop playing football.”

Kenter said the National Club Football Association, headquartered in Pittsburgh, uses a poll and rating system to rank teams to set up the championship game between the top two.

“We are the only undefeated team,” he said, adding that Ohio State is the two teams’ only common opponent. “They played Ohio State and beat them by about the same score as we did. I think this will be a real good game. I think they will be the best team we have played this year.”

Kenter said he faces his final game with two teammates who joined with him as freshmen. One is quarterback Campbell Stemper, who missed last year when he left Oxford to study abroad. He called Stemper “a great leader.”

The other of the trio is linebacker Matt Snider, who is actually coaching now. Snider did not play last year due to a torn ACL , but he helped coach defense and special teams. This year, he injured a knee in an early practice and is an assistant coach for the squad.

Junior Matt Boucher is in his third year with the team and serves as vice president this year. He will be the club’s president next year.

Two players who do not get the credit they deserve, according to Kenter, are defensive linemen and third-year players Eric Illig and Dan Davis.

“They make the defense go,” Kenter said. “They are both very physical and fundamentally sound. They are two guys who don’t get their due.”

The team has had some memorable games this year.

“We went to Chapel Hill (N.C.) and won 45-0,” Fry said. “Really, it was a heck of a football game. After the first seven minutes, we were ahead 28-0. We hit ’em hard and quick, then backed off.”

Fry also pointed to Miami’s Oct. 21 victory over Ohio State 38-14 and a Sept. 29 win over Southern Illinois University East by a 35-7 score as highlights. Wright State University has a new program and lost to Miami 19-6 on Nov. 3.

Kenter agreed with Fry that the Ohio State and North Carolina games were special.

“Ohio State had beaten us last year at Yager (Stadium),” Kenter said. “They had never beaten us before last year. It was nice to go up there and win. It was one of the special wins this year.”

The win at the University of North Carolina came as part of the team’s annual fall break road trip.

“They are the oldest club football team in the country, started in the 1970s, and we had never played them before. I reached out to their president and we were able to play them during fall break,” Kenter said, explaining that the long bus ride and having meals together gave team members a good bonding time. “It was the point of the season we can point to as coming together.”

The team opened the season with 2-0 win by forfeit over Xavier University on Sept. 23, which Miami knew about in advance, which allowed it to schedule Thomas More that same day and win that game on the field 6-0. The team’s other games of 2012 were a 21-10 win over the Wilmington College JV team on Oct. 6 and a 13-6 win over Michigan-Flint on Oct. 28.

“After six years, I think that’s fantastic,” Fry said. “The defense held opponents to less than one touchdown a game.”