1989 Fiesta Bowl

The 1989 Sunkist Fiesta Bowl, played on Monday, January 2, was the 18th edition of the Fiesta Bowl. It featured the top-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the third-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers. With both teams undefeated, the Fiesta Bowl was the stage for the "national championship" for the second time in three years. As in 1987, the Fiesta Bowl featured two independents squaring off for the national title. The Fighting Irish defeated the Mountaineers to win their first national championship since 1977, and their most recent to date.

Also, as in 1987, the game was played on January 2, but this was because New Year's Day fell on a Sunday in 1989 and, per protocols, all of the bowls that would normally take place that day were played on January 2. With NBC no longer televising the Rose Bowl, the kickoff for the Fiesta Bowl was moved three hours later, to 2:30 p.m. MST,^[2] and the game now had NBC's top broadcast team of Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen.

This was the last national championship game before the start of the Bowl Coalition system in 1992, which was intended to ensure that the national championship would be decided on the field in bowl games such as this one. It would later be replaced by the Bowl Alliance, BCS, and later the College Football Playoff systems, which took greater steps to prevent a split national championship from ever happening again.