National Collegiate Athletic Association

USC football Coach Pete Carroll employed a former NFL tactician last season to help with the team's punting and kicking game, an arrangement that may have violated NCAA rules that prohibit consultants from coaching, The Times has learned. Carroll's action could widen a continuing investigation by the NCAA, the governing body of major college sports, which has been looking at USC football for more than three years and the school's basketball program for the last year.

A proposed settlement in a federal antitrust suit could raise NCAA limits on financial aid and allow schools to pay athletes for other expenses such as travel, health insurance and laundry. A trial scheduled in Los Angeles this month has been delayed while the settlement is being completed, plaintiffs attorney Stephen Morrissey said Friday. He would not divulge details of the proposed agreement. "When the settlement is completed, it will become public record," Morrissey said.

This is about a tempest in a teapot, a condition found frequently in the silly bureaucracy of the NCAA. Just before the start of this college basketball season, UCLA received a letter of inquiry from the NCAA, seeking information about possible illegal contact between a recruit and a person representing the interests of the university. The recruit was Kevin Love, now the Bruins' star freshman center. The person representing the interests of the university was John Wooden.

The NCAA has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit brought by athletes who claimed their full scholarships failed to cover all the costs of attending school, agreeing to create a $10-million fund for former athletes' educational expenses and ease access to $218 million in existing funding for current athletes.

LAS VEGAS -- The NCAA is working here, seven members of its staff having been assigned to cover as much ground as possible this week among the approximately 900 teams competing in four prestigious basketball tournaments. No, they're not pulling suspected cheaters off the court and into a room for polygraph tests. "It isn't about what happens in this gym that concerns us," associate director of enforcement Richard A. Johanningmeier said. Said Sandra C.

When allegations surfaced this year that USC basketball star O.J. Mayo had received improper benefits from a sports agency funneled through close advisors, the university pointed to its own scrutiny of Mayo and said an NCAA "investigation" had deemed him eligible.

Two controversial clock rule changes introduced last year to college football were rescinded Wednesday -- and most coaches would say it was about time. The NCAA Football Rules Committee, meeting in Albuquerque, effectively acknowledged that Rules 3-2-5 and 3-2-5-e, enacted to reduce game times, were colossal mistakes. The committee proposed scrapping both measures and introduced other means to shorten games without eliminating plays or compromising strategy and sportsmanship.

College coaches will have to go back to recruiting the old-fashioned way. By a 13-3 vote, the NCAA board of directors approved a ban Thursday to eliminate all text messages from coaches to recruits, beginning in August. The move comes a week after the NCAA's management council recommended the ban, which also eliminates communications through other electronic means such as video phones, video conferencing and message boards on social networking websites.

The NCAA Men's Basketball Rules Committee recommended Thursday to extend the three-point line by a foot to 20 feet, nine inches -- that's three inches longer than the international distance but still much shorter than the NBA line, which ranges from 23 feet 9 inches to 22 feet. The change still must be approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel during its May 25 meeting.

The rich tradition of Oklahoma football now includes one of the most punishing losses in the history of the college game. The Sooners lost an entire season of wins. When the NCAA announced Wednesday that it was vacating all of Oklahoma's wins from the 2005 season because three players accepted improper payments from a car dealer, the hallowed program took a historically uncommon hit. The Sooners' 8-4 season becomes 0-4. A come-from-behind win over Oregon in the Holiday Bowl? Never happened.