COLLEGE FOOTBALL ROUNDUP

YSU moves into poll: Youngstown State moved into the FCS Coaches Poll, at No. 24, following the Penguins’ 34-27 win over Illinois State on Saturday. Youngstown State is No. 29 in The Sports Network poll.

Stoops’ extension: Two days after winning one of the season’s early marquee games, Bob Stoops was rewarded Monday with a new contract extension that could keep him as the coach of top-ranked Oklahoma through 2018 and pay him $34.5 million over the next seven years. Oklahoma’s board of regents voted to give Stoops a $75,000 bump in his annual salary and a handful of bonuses that will reward him for staying in Norman each June — after the coaching carousel has usually run its course. “I don’t think I need to add anything to the proof that he gave to the national viewing audience that there’s no better football coach in the country than he is,” university president David Boren said before recommending approval of Stoops’ new contract.

Realignment: Oklahoma cleared the way Monday for its possible departure from the Big 12, with university president David Boren demanding the league move toward an equal revenue-sharing model and create stability or else lose the Sooners to the Pac-12. Rival Texas also moved closer to the door, raising the prospect that one of the nation’s biggest conferences could lose its two richest, most powerful programs. After being granted the power to choose a new conference home for the Sooners, Boren said he is focused on only two options: a fractured Big 12 that isn’t currently suitable or the expanding Pac-12, which already claimed Oklahoma’s conference rival, Colorado, last summer. North Carolina: North Carolina will vacate all 16 football victories from the 2008 and 2009 seasons, and reduce scholarships as part of self-imposed penalties following an NCAA investigation into the program. The school also put the football program on two years of probation as a result of the probe into athletes accepting improper benefits and academic misconduct. South Carolina: The NCAA has accused South Carolina athletes of receiving $55,000 worth of impermissible benefits and recruiting inducements for getting reduced hotel rates and for their involvement with a Delaware-based mentoring organization. The NCAA sent university president Harris Pastides the letter of allegations Monday and requested the school’s response by Dec. 14. Football coach Steve Spurrier was among those asked to meet with the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions in Los Angeles on Feb. 17-18. Track coach Curtis Frye was also asked to attend the hearing. Pastides said the university would review the allegations and cooperate with the NCAA.

Staff/wire reports