ATLANTA — On Saturday night, as the city of Atlanta sat transfixed by Alabama’s throttling of Georgia in the SEC title game, a titan of a previous generation of college football plotted a long game of catch-up to that caliber of stage.
A few miles from the Mercedes Benz Dome, University of Miami officials met with Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich about becoming the school’s next AD. While plotting that move, they’d already begun feverishly and clumsily putting together an offer to lure home Oregon coach Mario Cristobal, who is expected to decide Sunday night whether he stays in Eugene or heads back to Coral Gables.