No college football game could be harder to handicap than Saturday's matchup in Buena Vista between host Southern Virginia and Radford.

Radford (3-3) has a club team whose opponents to date have included an online university, Columbia Southern, as well as the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Southern Virginia (1-7), an independent NAIA team, has an upcoming game with Webber International but already has faced a couple of Division I-AA foes in Morehead State and Gardner-Webb.

Southern Virginia's lone victory has come over the other club team on its schedule, George Mason. A homecoming crowd watched Southern Virginia roll to a 51-12 victory at the Parry McCluer High School field that it calls home.

"Radford is much better than George Mason," Southern Virginia coach DeLane Fitzgerald said. "They're going to play two weeks from now, and I think you'll see that."

Shortly after he was elevated to the head-coaching job Feb. 9, Fitzgerald contacted Radford's club team about a game this season. The Highlanders were 0-6 last season in their first year of club football.

"Are we favored?" Fitzgerald said. "Yeah, we should be favored this week. Can they beat us? Absolutely. I don't think there's any doubt they can come in here and beat us.

"Radford's got some kids on their team that I think I'd enjoy coaching."

Radford's club team is not affiliated with the Highlanders' athletic program and must go through the same process for funding that other clubs do. Radford athletic director Robert Lineburg said he has not been a party to any discussions about a possible intercollegiate football program.

"It's not something that I would rule out," Lineburg said, "but, it's such a monumental undertaking."

The president of the Radford football club is Jeremy Sturgill, a two-way All-Three Rivers District selection who played for Lineburg's father at Radford High School.

Sturgill plays nose tackle and a little fullback for the Radford team and also helped set up a schedule that includes club teams from the University of North Carolina and South Carolina. North Carolina defeated Radford 2-0 at Henry Stadium in Chapel Hill.

"That's the field where they play field hockey," said Sturgill, who aspires to a career in sports administration. "Playing football with all those field-hockey lines out there, now that was a little different!"

Connections

Former North Carolina State quarterback Harrison Beck has passed for 2,675 yards and 24 touchdowns for North Alabama, which is 9-0 and ranked first in Division II under first-year head coach Terry Bowden. Bowden, 52, had been out of coaching since his 1998 departure from Auburn.

Beck, who began his college career at Nebraska, is one of 24 former Division I-A players on the roster at North Alabama. Six are from Florida State, where Bowden's father is the head coach. Ex Seminoles at North Alabama include Nos. 2 and 3 rushers Marcus Sims and Jamaal Edwards, as well as wideout Preston Parker, who has 40 receptions for 625 yards and five touchdowns.

North Alabama also has players from West Virginia, North Carolina, Miami, Alabama, Texas and Pittsburgh.

Milestones

Washington and Lee was prepared to promote its season finale at Emory & Henry as the 1,000th football game in school history until sports information director Brian Laubscher double-checked and found that the Generals actually played their 1,000th game this past Saturday, when they defeated Guilford 28-21.

This week, W&L (3-5, 2-2 ODAC) entertains Bridgewater (5-2, 2-1). Mike Clark, who is in his 15th season as the Eagles' head coach, celebrated his 100th career victory when Bridgewater rallied for a 34-31 triumph this past Saturday at Emory & Henry.

Clark, previously the defensive coordinator at Virginia Tech and VMI, is 100-61-1. Washington and Lee's all-time record is 462-499-39.

Local update

Salem High School graduate Jonathan Clemo leads W&L in rushing with 734 yards in eight games and his former Spartan teammate and fellow W&L sophomore, Harrison Hudson, is the Generals' leading receiver with 18 catches.

Hudson is the Generals' No. 3 rusher and Clemo is the No. 3 receiver.

Cave Spring graduate Jourdan McDaniel was having a breakout season for the Radford women's soccer team before a torn anterior cruciate ligament ended her season. It was the second torn ACL for McDaniel, who earlier had undergone reconstructive surgery as a junior at Cave Spring, but she is determined to return for the 2010 season.

In recognition

Susan Eberly Short, the director of Virginia Tech's Roanoke Center, recently was named to the sports hall of fame at Shenandoah University in Winchester. Short, from Maryland's Garrett County, enrolled with plans to participate in intercollegiate athletics but played on Shenandoah's first women's basketball team and was a three-time all-conference pick who scored more than 1,000 points. Short also played softball before her 1981 graduation.