Frank Solich will be honored as a special guest at Nebraska’s spring game on April 22, athletic director Trev Alberts revealed on Wednesday.

Speaking during his regular appearance on the Husker Sports Nightly radio show, Alberts said the former Husker head coach will be back for the game and the program plans to “honor Frank and his family.” There will also be another special announcement related to Solich during the game.

“We’ve been working on this for a while but I think it’s time. Really looking forward to Husker Nation honoring Frank and thanking him for everything he’s done as a player, as a coach, and also honor him for what he did after he left here,” Alberts said. “Frank is a College Football Hall of Famer in terms of what he accomplished as a coach. An incredible person. So after, yes, a lot of work, we’re going to be really excited to get to honor Frank Solich at the spring game.”

Solich was fired by Nebraska after a 9-3 regular season in 2003, a decision that fractured the fanbase and remains hotly contested to this day. He was as engrained in the state as any, having spent most of his life in Nebraska as a player, a high school coach, a longtime assistant under Tom Osborne (1978-97), and then the head coach who came after Osborne (1998-2003).

Nebraska enjoyed 4 decades of national dominance before Solich left. It has endured 9 losing seasons since.

After leaving the Huskers, Solich went on to become the all-time winningest coach in the Mid-American Conference, leading Ohio to a 115-82 record before retiring in July of 2021. Since joining the Bobcats in 2005, Solich led the program to 12 winning seasons and 11 bowl appearances.

“In many of our conversations, I think one of the ways it got to turn the corner a little bit, he would continue to say, ‘Trev, it’s just not me. I don’t want that,'” Alberts said. “It finally dawned on me and I said, ‘You know Frank, what if I told you it’s not about you? What if I told you it’s about the fans?’ And our fans want to. That gave him pause.”

It’s believed that Solich has not been back to Memorial Stadium since 2003.

The curse is soon to be over.