PEAKING : West Virginia’s Unbeaten Mountaineers Seek Summit: a National Championship

Seems there is always a Notre Dame fan around, in just about any part of the country. These days, the newest pocket of Irish support is wedged in the hills on the banks of the Monongahela River in Morgantown, W. Va.

The bowl picture may still be complicated, but to the hardy fans of fourth-ranked West Virginia, it seems clear that the Mountaineers can’t assure themselves of a shot at the national championship merely by going undefeated.

The way many West Virginians have it figured, they need to meet an undefeated Notre Dame team in a bowl--probably the Fiesta--to play for the title. If USC finishes undefeated, beating Notre Dame, or if the national title comes down to a judgment call, everyone down to Coach Don Nehlen knows that may count the Mountaineers out.

A cheer for the Irish? Nehlen laughs.

“I’ve always been a big Notre Dame fan,” he said. “Everybody’s a Notre Dame fan.”

Even if the Mountaineers went undefeated, they would have only “a chance” at the national championship, Nehlen conceded early in the season. And that’s only “as long as the so-called giants lose a game or two. I don’t think if USC was undefeated . . . we could do it.”

The talk is all conjecture now, of course, and there are schemes involving numerous bowls. And West Virginia still has games remaining against Rutgers (4-5) Saturday, and Syracuse (7-1) the week after.

“We have to keep winning,” Nehlen said. “There’s going to be a lot of things happening between now and the bowls. Of course, if you’re at West Virginia, hoping to win the national championship, a lot of things have to happen in your favor. . . . Our players just want to win this week’s game. Then they know good things will happen.”

In the meantime, the Mountaineers seem to be making their case with overkill. They are averaging 45 points a game, 55 at home.

“It just kind of happens,” Nehlen said.

Plenty of the credit goes to Major Harris, the junior quarterback who runs, passes and directs the Mountaineers’ big-play offense.

West Virginia fans are particularly taken with Harris, who went to Pittsburgh’s Brashear High School and was recruited from under Pitt’s nose, not to mention Penn State and the other Eastern powers that have long overshadowed the Mountaineers.

After Harris had been injured in the third quarter of a 51-13 victory over Cincinnati Saturday, Tony Caridi, the host of Nehlen’s phenomenally popular radio call-in show, “The Don Nehlen Statewide Sportsline,” was overwhelmed with questions.

“I think more people are interested in the status of Major Harris’ hip-pointer than in the outcome of the elections,” Caridi said.

Bulletin to any displaced Mountaineer fans: Harris is OK.

On the field, he has been more than OK, directing an offense with a penchant for big plays. This is not a team that powers the ball in from a yard out.

Want evidence? Take a look at West Virginia’s scoring summary in its victory over Cincinnati, which included:

--A 40-yard pass from Harris to Grantis Bell.

--A 68-yard pass from Harris to Reggie Rembert.

--A 41-yard run by Anthony Brown.

--A 51-yard run by Rembert.

The long-distance strikes haven’t been limited to games against the likes of Cincinnati, which is 2-7.

In a 31-10 victory over Pitt, Harris threw a 33-yard touchdown pass and Brown broke a 64-yard run for a touchdown. And in a 51-30 victory over Penn State, Eugene Napoleon had a 69-yard scoring run, and Harris threw touchdown passes of 40 and 49 yards and scored on a 27-yard run.

Of the 49 touchdowns West Virginia has scored, the average touchdown play has been 18.9 yards. The tendency has been even more pronounced in the last 3 games. Against Boston College, Penn State and Cincinnati, West Virginia scored 20 touchdowns, the average distance of which was 31.6 yards.

And for the times when West Virginia doesn’t manage a touchdown, the Mountaineers have an accurate kicker in Charlie Baumann, who has made 17 of 20 field-goal attempts and 48 of 50 extra-point kicks.

But Harris, who has completed 59.2% of his passes for 1,505 yards, has been the major reason for West Virginia’s success. And as impressive as his passing is his running. This is a quarterback who averages 4.8 yards a carry and has rushed for 432 yards.

The Mountaineer offense, which is averaging 496 yards a game--291 rushing--is shored up by running backs Brown and Undra Johnson, and receivers Rembert and Calvin Phillips.

There’s also the defense, which has held opponents to 14 or fewer points in 6 games this season.

But much of the appeal of this team comes from its fans, earnest folks who swell Morgantown into the state’s largest city when they pack 63,500-seat Mountaineer Field, the sort of place where there are no signs directing fans to parking. You’re supposed to know.

In a state with a population under 2 million and an unemployment rate of 9%, well above the national average, Mountaineer football has become the emblem of state pride and achievement.

“We have no Los Angeles Raiders, we have no Los Angeles Lakers. We have no pro anything,” Nehlen said. “In the entire state, we have only one Division I major-college team, and that’s us.

“And we play a big-time schedule, so consequently everybody in the state follows us, and we’ve built the program to the point now that if you’re not in Morgantown Saturday, you’re not with it, so to speak.”

Nehlen coached at his alma mater, Bowling Green, for 12 years, 9 as head coach, before spending 3 years as an assistant at Michigan. In 1980, he went to West Virginia, taking over from Frank Cignetti after 4 consecutive losing seasons. Nehlen’s first team was 6-6. The next three all went 9-3 and to bowl games. The Mountaineers had 2 more winning seasons before going 4-7 in 1986 and 6-6 last year. And now this.

The resurgence of Mountaineer football--West Virginia has played in only one New Year’s Day bowl, the 1954 Sugar--has made Nehlen a beloved man in the state and at a university where, incidentally, the athletic director is Fred Schaus, the former Laker coach and general manager who coached Jerry West at West Virginia before both came to Los Angeles.

Schaus returned to West Virginia in 1981, in time for Nehlen’s second season.

Nehlen’s radio show with host Caridi is almost comical for its lack of controversy. This is the sort of show that typically thrives on the input of second-guessers.

Not so at West Virginia.

“We very seldom get a call saying, ‘You ought to run the single wing,’ or ‘You ought to resign,’ or, ‘You ought to do this,’ ” Nehlen said.

Nehlen may have the most amiable callers in the East.

“People just want to talk to him,” Caridi said. “They say, ‘I just want to thank you for being in the state of West Virginia and for what you’re doing for the state of West Virginia.’ ”