From 1913 until 1920, Solem was the head coach of the Minneapolis Marines, prior to that team's entry into the National Football League (NFL).

After one year there, he was named head coach and athletic director at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa in 1921.

In 1932, Solem signed a three-year contract to succeed Burt Ingwersen as the 13th head football coach at the University of Iowa.

He took over an Iowa football program that had recently been suspended from athletic competition in the Big Ten Conference for a month.

Since Iowa was a predominantly agricultural state, the Depression hit the Hawkeye athletic program particularly hard.

[2] Hopes were not high in 1933, but Iowa responded with a 5–3 final record and Hawkeyes quarterback Joe Laws was named the Big Ten MVP.

Iowa managed to bounce back the following year with a respectable 4–2–2 record in 1935 behind the play of captain Dick Crayne and the sensational Ozzie Simmons.

After the 1935 season, Solem worked with the president of the university at the time to improve the job situation for athletes in Iowa City.

Many of the athletes Solem successfully recruited to Iowa would become the foundation for the 1939 Hawkeye team, nicknamed the "Ironmen", which included Nile Kinnick and Erwin Prasse.