D'Angelo: Hiring Dan Radakovich as AD would be a home run for Miami Hurricanes; what about Manny Diaz?

Miami may or may not make that home-run hire it is chasing for its football coach - and that has Manny Diaz twisting in the wind. But if Clemson's Dan Radakovich accepts its offer, UM will have hit it out of the park with its new athletic director.

The Hurricanes are going all out trying to land a big name AD with reports indicating the 63-year-old Radakovich is mulling over an offer of $3 million annually. That salary would be more than a $2 million a year raise from his current rate and make him the highest paid AD in the country, zooming past the paltry $2.4 million that Texas' Chris Del Conte earns.

Hiring Radakovich is not a done deal, according to most reports, but momentum appears to be building. A report late Friday that Radakovich informed his staff at Clemson that he was leaving for Miami was shot down.

What about Manny?: AD Blake James out at Miami: What will that mean for Manny Diaz's future?

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For many reasons, hiring Radakovich to replace Blake James, who was fired Nov. 16, is an immediate upgrade to the entire program, but the most pressing issue centers around a football program in chaos.

No other coach in the country has been hung out to dry by a university more than Diaz, and this is a year in which 25 programs are undergoing change, whether it be the coach being fired or stepping down.

Miami continues its pursuit of Oregon's Mario Cristobal, whose season was tarnished the last three weeks. The Ducks went from the No. 3 team in the country to losing twice to Utah by combined scores of 76-17, including Friday night's 38-10 loss in the Pac-12 championship game.

Cristobal has an extension sitting on his desk that from all reports could be in the $100-million, 10-year range, which, astonishingly, has become the going rate for the elite - and not so elite (see: Mel Tucker, Michigan State; and James Franklin, Penn State) - coaches in the country.

"I haven't talked to anybody so let's not create narratives," Cristobal said late Friday after his Ducks weren't even competitive against Utah for the second time in three weeks.

"Oregon is working on some stuff for me and that's what I have right now.

If there is anything to report, I would report it. If I had any plans, if I had a decision to make, or if I had something to report, I would."

Cristobal, a Miami alum who got his coaching career started in 1998 as a graduate assistant at UM, does not hide the fact he expects to be wooed.

"Do I expect people to come at me? Yeah, I do," he said. "It happens every single year. Is there anything else to report besides that? There is nothing else to report besides that."

If Radakovich is hired, we'll know soon if he plans to keep Diaz, or pushes hard for Cristobal. One potential candidate was taken out of play Saturday when Ole Miss announced a new contract for Lane Kiffin.

Radakovich also could go after a coach with whom he is very familiar. Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables is the hottest name among assistant coaches and reportedly a candidate for the Oklahoma job. Radakovich is the man who made Venables the highest paid coordinator in college football at $2.5 million a year.

Let's get to the next point why Radakovich would be a solid hire ... new blood. Miami needs to bring in an established, experienced AD who knows the value of football but also knows how to run an athletic department, not turn it into a good ol' boys club for former players.

This is not the '80s, or '90s, or early 2000s. Miami is not the national brand it once was. In fact, it is just the opposite. When it comes to football, Miami arguably is the most underachieving program in the country since it joined the ACC in 2004, never having won a conference title and playing in just one title game.

Radakovich understands it all. He is familiar with Miami, having received his master's degree in business administration from the UM Business School in 1982. And he is familiar with the ACC having served as the AD at Georgia Tech for more than six years before being hired at Clemson in the fall of 2012.

In the last decade, only his counterpart at Alabama, Greg Byrne, has done a better job than Radakovich at boosting the football program at his school to an all-time elite level.

Dabo Swinney already was the football coach when Radakovich arrived. But that was in 2012 and the Tigers had played in one ACC championship game. Three years later, Clemson would start a run of six consecutive ACC titles and six consecutive years in the College Football Playoff, including two national championships (2016, 2018)

Clemson will finish 2021 with its worst record in a decade. Yet, with a win in a bowl, the Tigers will be 10-3, which equals Miami's best record in 18 years.

A big reason for that surge has been a fundraising initiative that led to Clemson building the Taj Mahal of athletic facilities. Widely considered the best facility in the country, the finishing touch was a recent $55 million, 140,000 square-foot facelift that made Clemson the cool place to go for blue-chip high school recruits. Additional upgrades are being made to Memorial Stadium.

Compared to a theme park, the facility includes a playground slide, miniature golf course, basketball court, bowling lanes and Whiffle ball field. The weight room stretches across 23,000 square feet.

Other milestones - a $63 million renovation for Littlejohn Coliseum, increasing graduation rates, the softball program starting in 2020 and winning the ACC regular season the next year, men's soccer team winning the 2020 ACC championship, hundreds of millions of dollars raised.

Of course, most of that does not resonate to fans who believe everything revolves around football. But bringing in Radakovich would be just the new blood Miami needs.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Clemson's Dan Radakovich possible Miami AD; what about Manny Diaz?