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1988 Western Michigan Broncos football team

American college football team season

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ22026270 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1988 Western Michigan Broncos football team was an American football team that represented Western Michigan University during the 1988 NCAA Division I-A football season. In their second season under head coach Al Molde, the Broncos compiled a 9–3 record, won the Mid-American Conference (MAC) championship, and lost to Fresno State in the 1988 California Bowl.

The win over Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium was Western Michigan's first ever over a Big Ten opponent in 12 attempts. Western Michigan had previously defeated Michigan Agricultural College (Michigan State) in 1917 and 1919, however those victories came prior to Michigan State's university status (1955) and Big Ten Conference membership (1953).

The team's statistical leaders were Tony Kimbrough with 2,831 passing yards, Robert Davis with 1,125 rushing yards, and Robert Oliver with 42 catches for 831 receiving yards. Kimbrough was selected as the MAC's most valuable player and the offensive player of the year. Offensive lineman Kevin Haverdink was selected by the Associated Press as a third-team All-American. Al Molde was named the MAC Coach of the Year.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “1988 Western Michigan Broncos football team” as american college football team season. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Western, Michigan and Broncos.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1988, 1917, 1919, 1955—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Western, Michigan and Broncos providing the first useful test.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “1988 Western Michigan Broncos football team”, the useful work is to connect “american college football team season” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q22026270. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1988, 1917, 1919 and 1955.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1988 Western Michigan Broncos football team” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.