Former Nebraska Football Head Coach Frank Solich is one of 22 individuals who will make up the 2024 College Football Hall of Fame Class. The 19 players and three coaches were announced on Monday afternoon by the National Football Foundation and the College Hall of Fame.
The electees were selected from the 2024 national ballot of 78 players and nine coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision and 101 players and 32 coaches from the divisional ranks.
Solich becomes the seventh Husker coach in the Hall of Fame, joining Tom Osborne, Bob Devaney, Biff Jones, Dana X. Bible, Fielding Yost and Eddie N. Robinson. Overall, Nebraska has 27 members in the Hall, including 20 players. Solich is the first Nebraska inductee since offensive tackle Zach Wiegert in 2022 and gives Nebraska nine inductees in the past 18 classes. Other recent Nebraska inductees include Eric Crouch (2020), Aaron Taylor (2018), Trev Alberts (2015), Tommie Frazier (2013) and Will Shields (2011).
During his 22 seasons as a head coach, Solich compiled a record of 173-101, including a 58-19 record in six seasons as Nebraska's head coach from 1998 to 2003, followed by 115 wins as the head coach at Ohio University. Solich led the Huskers to the 1999 Big 12 Conference championship. The Huskers finished No. 3 in the AP Poll in 1999 after beating Tennessee in the Fiesta Bowl and rolling to a 22-6 win over Texas in the Big 12 Championship Game. NU added a co-Big 12 North Division title in 2001, when the Huskers met Miami in the Rose Bowl for the national championship.
Nebraska added a final No. 8 national ranking by the Associated Press in both 2000 and 2001. The 2001 Huskers featured the nation's top college player - Heisman Trophy winner and 2020 Hall of Fame inductee Eric Crouch. A four-year starter, Crouch added Walter Camp National Player-of-the-Year and Davey O'Brien awards while becoming Nebraska's career leader in total offense.
A product of the Nebraska football program first as a player, then as an assistant coach, Solich's career at Nebraska spanned four decades since first arriving in Lincoln in 1962 to play fullback in Coach Bob Devaney's first season.
Although Solich was not with Nebraska during all 42 of those seasons, as he spent more than a decade as a high school head coach in Nebraska before joining the Husker coaching staff as an assistant in 1979. During his playing and coaching tenure as a Husker, all 29 Nebraska teams he was associated with played in a bowl game.
In his final game as NU's assistant head coach and running backs coach, Solich helped the Huskers to a third national championship in a four-year span with a resounding 42-17 win over Tennessee in the Orange Bowl, helping Osborne go out as a reigning national champion.
