As early as Wednesday morning, Colorado State head coach Jim McElwain was reportedly a done deal to be the Florida Gators head coach, but late Wednesday night there is no deal in place and Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley flew back by himself.
The official Florida football Twitter account is optimistic after spending just over a day in Colorado.
We’ve had very productive conversations with Coach McElwain and his wife Karen and those continue.
— GatorZone Football (@GatorZoneFB) December 3, 2014
The holdup is the $7.5 million buyout that is in place and "CSU has not budged an inch on the buyout," a source told the Orlando Sentinel Wednesday afternoon.
Colorado State president Tony Frank should stick to his guns and collect on that amount, because there is a reason that a buyout is in place.
ESPN's Brett McMurphy is also reporting that any deal is on ice for the time being, again due to the buyout. "At this point, any potential deal is on hold until there's some sort of resolution with the buyout issue," a source said.
That is some positive news for Colorado State but there is even more good news in that Frank is planning on staying firm on the buyout, and also that McMurphy is reporting that another source is saying that Florida officials are "pessimistic" the deal will get done if the buyout is not reduced.
This is great new for Colorado State because Frank actually agreed to allow McElwain to leave for a dream job with a reduced or even no buyout back on June 6. However, it seems that Frank is not going to use that type of power that was given to him.
There is hope that McElwain could still stick around and be Colorado State's head coach next season.