Coach Frank Solich on Ballot for College Football Hall of Fame

No former Huskers make the 2023 ballot as players

Joe Hudson | Jun 6, 2022

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Fearless Frankie has a chance to officially become Famous Frankie.

Frank Solich, Nebraska's head football coach from 1998 to 2003, is one of nine FBS coaches to earn a spot on the 2023 ballot for the College Football Hall of Fame released Monday.

For the first time in at least 20 years, no former Husker made the ballot as a player. Former Nebraska offensive lineman Zach Wiegert, however, will be enshrined later this year as part of the 2022 class.

Solich retired as head coach at Ohio last summer at age 76. During his 22 seasons as a head coach, he compiled a record of 173-101, including 58-19 in his six seasons at Nebraska.

In 1999, he led the Huskers to the Big 12 Conference championship, an Orange Bowl win over Tennessee and final rankings of No. 2 and 3 in the two major polls. Nebraska added a share of the Big 12 North Division title in 2001, when the Huskers met Miami in the Rose Bowl for the national championship.

Solich arrived in Lincoln from Cleveland in 1962, coach Bob Devaney's first season at Nebraska. Solich earned the nickname "Fearless Frankie" as an undersized fullback and became the first Husker to rush for 200 yards in a game.

After his senior season in 1965, Solich coached in the high school ranks in Omaha and Lincoln before joining Tom Osborne's Husker 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.

He was fired by then-Athletic Director Steve Pederson at the end of a 9-3 regular season in 2003. Solich then guided Ohio’s program for 16 seasons from 2005 to 2020, leading the Bobcats to 12 winning seasons, 11 bowl appearances and four MAC East Division titles. He has the most wins of any coach in Mid-American Conference history.

Also on the 2023 ballot is former Husker Al Zikmund, as a coach at Kearney State. It is the sixth year on the ballot for Zikmund, a member of the Nebraska team that played in the 1941 Rose Bowl. (He is the youngest player in Rose Bowl history (18) to catch a touchdown pass.) At Kearney State, his teams went 121-31-3 during his tenure from 1955 to 1971. He died in 2018 at age 95.

Published Jun 6, 2022

JOE HUDSON

Joe Hudson has operated a Husker-related website since 1995 and joined forces with David Max to form HuskerPedia (later renamed HuskerMax) in 1999. It began as a hobby during his 35 years as a newspaper editor and reporter, a career that included stints at the Lincoln Star, Omaha World-Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer and Denver Post. In Denver, Joe was chief of the copy desk during his final 16 years at the Post. He is proud to have been involved in Pulitzer Prize-winning projects in both Philadelphia and Denver. Joe has been a Nebraska football fan since the mid-1960s during his childhood in Omaha. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in journalism and economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1976. He resides a few freeway exits north of Colorado Springs and enjoys bicycling and walking his dogs in his spare time. You can reach him at joeroyhud@outlook.com.

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