{"id":458040,"date":"2026-02-09T10:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/458040\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T10:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:37:15","slug":"wvu-legend-major-harris-lands-coaching-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/458040\/","title":{"rendered":"WVU Legend Major Harris Lands Coaching Opportunity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WVU legend Major Harris will be spending a lot of time in West Virginia and around football moving forward. But Harris won\u2019t be playing like he did for the Mountaineers in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>Harris will be serving as an offensive assistant and quarterbacks coach for the Wheeling Miners of today the American Arena League.<\/p>\n<p>The team <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/185nL6RdeR\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced the addition of Harris to their coaching staff on its Facebook page<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the most electrifying players ever to wear the Gold &amp; Blue is bringing his football mind, leadership, and passion for the game right here to the Ohio Valley. From breaking records in Morgantown to inspiring generations of Mountaineer fans, Major Harris now steps into a new chapter\u2014helping guide our Miners offense to new heights. This is major news for the Miners. And yes\u2026 the pun is absolutely intended. Let\u2019s give Coach Harris a warm Wheeling welcome! Let\u2019s go, Miners!,\u201d read the announcement from the team.<\/p>\n<p>At WVU, Harris threw for 5,173 career passing yards, ran for 2,161 rushing yards and scored 59 career touchdowns (41 passing, 18 rushing). He was the second quarterback ever to throw for over 5,000 yards and run for over 2,000. Those combined to 7,334 yards in total \u2013 a school-record at the time and currently No. 7 in school history.<\/p>\n<p>Add WV Sports Now as a Preferred Source <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=wvsportsnow.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">by clicking here.<\/a> You can also find us on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wvsportsnow\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> and check us out on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC4mtB2t5Iq4IgEV5VX2dXGQ?view_as=subscriber\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>. And don&#8217;t forget to <a href=\"https:\/\/wvsportsnow.com\/subscribe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sign-up<\/a> to get all of our articles delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14966\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14966\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Harris-1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Major Harris\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\"   loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-14966\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Courtesy of WVU Athletics<\/p>\n<p>Harris was an All-American in 1989, ECAC Player of the Year in both 1988 and 1989, finished within the top five in Heisman voting twice (1988 \u2013 3rd, 1989 \u2013 5th), was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2009 and <a href=\"https:\/\/wvsportsnow.com\/watch-major-harris-recalls-time-at-wvu-details-honor-of-number-retirement\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">had his jersey number (No. 9) retired by WVU<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38041\" class=\"wp-image-38041 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CSC_0158-500x333.jpg\" alt=\"Major Harris retired number on stadium wall \" width=\"500\" height=\"333\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-38041\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">WVSN photo by Kelsie LeRose<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps his most memorable year as a Mountaineer was in 1988 when he lead West Virginia to an undefeated and untied 11-0 regular season record. It still stands as the closest West Virginia has come to winning a national championship since finishing the 1922 season undefeated. WVU capped off the 1988 campaign facing No. 1 Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl, which essentially served as a national championship game. They lost that game to Notre Dame by the score of 34-21.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WVU legend Major Harris will be spending a lot of time in West Virginia and around football moving&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[3498,399,214002,398,396,397,99,7943,214003,204254],"class_list":["post-458040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-feature","tag-football","tag-major-harris","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports","tag-west-virginia","tag-wheeling-miners","tag-wvu-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}