Dan Radakovich reveals initial goals, keys for success at Miami

Miami made a big splash at athletic director this year, hiring former Clemson AD Dan Radakovich to replace Blake James. As he gets ready for his first full academic year with the Hurricanes, he’s already getting an idea of what the keys to success will be in South Beach.

Radakovich joined the ESPN College Football Podcast this week to talk about how he’s settling in with Miami and look toward the future. While at Clemson, he oversaw a great period for the football program, and he’s hoping to get that same success at Miami.

But it takes more than getting football on track to make an athletic department run well, he said. The entire athletic department has to work together toward success.

“Being fortunate to have had seen it and been a part of it at Clemson, I think I can help the University of Miami get to that similar point,” Radakovich said. “Are we there today? No. We’ve only been together five or six months. So it’s going to take a little longer to create that kind of alignment. But I think it’s hard to be able to do anything if you haven’t really been a part of it before. Being able to talk to the institutional representatives, members of the board, certainly translating with the football program with Mario, I think it’s going to be a work in progress.

“But because Mario’s seen it at some of his stops and I’ve seen it at some of mine, I think we can kind of pull this together very, very quickly with the folks on campus because there’s a great desire [on] campus to have that type of alignment that allows the athletic program to move ahead very, very quickly.”

Miami is entering a new era at football with Radakovich in as AD and Hurricanes alum Mario Cristobal as the new head coach, replacing Manny Diaz. He makes his return to campus after spending the last five seasons at Oregon — the last five as the Ducks headman.