The team was led by head coach Don Nehlen, in his ninth year, and played their home games at Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia.

The Mountaineers rolled to a 31–10 victory over Pitt on the way to their first undefeated, untied regular season in school history.

On a draw play, runningback Undra Johnson ran 55 yards for the touchdown to end the half.

The Mountaineers traveled to Giants Stadium to play Rutgers, who had beat Penn St., Boston College, and Michigan State.

West Virginia traveled to the Fiesta Bowl to play the only other undefeated team in the NCAA, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Free-safety Darrell Whitmore was out for the Mountaineers, but Nehlen moved star Bo Orlando from strong safety to free to fill the hole.

Major Harris separated his shoulder on the third play when he was slammed to the ground by Irish Linebacker Michael Stonebreaker.

The WVU coaches also abandoned their plans to run a lot of option football out of fear of further injuring Harris.

Statistics West Virginia's 1988 team was highlighted with an explosive offense, led by Major Harris.

Harris, only a sophomore, threw an exceptional deep ball in addition to his remarkable scrambling ability.

Brown, Undra Johnson, Eugene Napoleon, and Craig Taylor at fullback highlighted the run game.

Early in the season, Keith Winn was moved from receiver to tight end, providing help to the run game, but was more famous as a deep-pass threat.

The receivers catching the balls from Harris were led by Reggie Rembert, who was accompanied by Calvin Phillips and Grantis Bell.

Coach Don Nehlen credited West Virginia's '88 team's defense as being the main factor to their success.

The linebacking core included Renaldo Turnbull, Chris Haering, Steve Grant, Dale Jackson, Theron Ellis, and Robert Pickett.