(SportsNetwork.com) – The University of Florida has reportedly hit a stumbling block in its attempt to make Colorado State’s Jim McElwain its new head football coach due to a buyout clause in his current contract.<\/p>\n
Under the terms of his pact with Colorado State, McElwain would have to pay the school $7.5 million to be released from the contract and take over at Florida. According to a report from the Orlando Sentinel, Colorado State has offered strong resistance to reducing that number.<\/p>\n
“CSU has not budged an inch on the buyout,” a source told the newspaper on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
McElwain, a former offensive coordinator at Alabama who guided the Rams to a 10-2 record this season, has emerged as the Gators’ first choice to replace the fired Will Muschamp.<\/p>\n
The buyout sum remains a significant hurdle, however, especially since Florida just paid Muschamp over $6 million in money owed over his contract.<\/p>\n
According to the Sentinel, the gap between the two schools is sizeable enough that Florida officials have become skeptical of a deal being reached. The newspaper also stated that previous reports that McElwain had a meeting with his players to inform them that he is leaving were untrue.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Florida sports information department did confirm that athletic director Jeremy Foley flew to Fort Collins to interview with McElwain and negotiate with him about the position.<\/p>\n
“We’ve had very productive conversations with Coach McElwain and his wife Karen and those continue,” read the statement.<\/p>\n
McElwain, the 2014 Mountain West Coach of the Year, was awarded a three-year extension through 2019 by Colorado State in August. He has amassed a 22-16 record over three seasons as the Rams’ head coach and guided the program to eight wins — including a victory in the New Mexico Bowl — in 2013.<\/p>\n
The 52-year-old also fits the profile of the offensively oriented coach Foley publicly stated he was seeking to replace the defensive-minded Muschamp. Colorado State ranks seventh in FBS in passing offense (326.3) and has averaged 497.8 total yards per game this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(SportsNetwork.com) – The University of Florida has reportedly hit a stumbling block in its attempt to make Colorado State’s Jim McElwain its new head football coach due to a buyout clause in his current contract. Under the terms of his pact with Colorado State, McElwain would have to pay the school $7.5 million to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ncaa-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}