University of Houston regents will meet Thursday and are expected to give the chancellor authority to move the Cougars out of Conference USA to a new league, possibly the Big East.

The regents on Monday scheduled the special meeting to give Chancellor and President Renu Khator the authority to “execute a contract for athletic conference affiliation and to negotiate and provide notice of contract cancellation.” The item does not specify a conference destination.

Richard Bonnin, executive director of media relations for the university, referred questions the athletic department, where officials did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. Big East Associate Commissioner John Paquette said the league “will continue our stance of not talking about individual institutions throughout the conference realignment process.”

The Big East, which has an automatic bid to the Bowl Championship Series for its football champion, has been scouring the landscape for new members after Syracuse and Pittsburgh accepted invitations to the Atlantic Coast Conference and TCU, which was scheduled to join the Big East in 2012, defected to the Big 12.

Texas state Rep. Garnett Coleman, whose district includes the Houston campus, said getting the Cougars into a BCS conference would be great step for an old Southwest Conference power that got left out the Big 12 when SWC fell apart in the early 1990s.

“It puts (the athletes) on a national stage,” Coleman said.

TE Haywood leaving OU

Norman, Okla. — Tight end Austin Haywood plans to transfer from No. 11 Oklahoma at the end of the semester.

Coach Bob Stoops announced after practice Monday that Haywood was going to “quit” and that “we’re all good with that and wish him the best.”

Haywood played in the Sooners’ first six games this season, catching six passes for 42 yards. The sophomore was Oklahoma’s top tight end behind seniors James Hanna and Trent Ratterree, leaving the future of the position for next season in question.

Haywood is the team’s third offensive player to decide to transfer since the season started.

Iowa State changing QBs

Ames, Iowa — Iowa State quarterback Steele Jantz’s turnover-prone play left him fighting to keep his job heading into last week’s game against Texas A&M.

Jantz’s first toss was then picked off, and by the end of the opening quarter coach Paul Rhoads turned to untested red-shirt freshman Jared Barnett.

Barnett played the rest of the way in a 33-17 loss to the 16th-ranked Aggies, and he’ll get his first career start Saturday when the struggling Cyclones (3-4, 0-4 Big 12) travel to face Texas Tech (5-2, 2-2).

Rhoads says Jantz has lost confidence since injuring his foot in a win over Connecticut last month. Iowa State has scored just 34 points in its last two games.

Oregon CB suspended

Eugene, Ore. — Oregon cornerback Cliff Harris was suspended Monday after he was pulled over for several infractions, including driving on a suspended license and driving without insurance.

In a statement released by the school, Ducks coach Chip Kelly suspended Harris pending further review and he will not be able to take part in any football-related activities.

Eugene police said that Harris was stopped on a city street Monday afternoon after an officer noted he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, for which he was also cited.

He faces fines in excess of $952. The car he was driving, which police say belongs to a relative, was impounded.

Harris, an All-American who broke up 23 passes and averaged 18.8 yards per punt return last season, was also ticketed in June by Oregon State Police for driving 118 mph on Interstate 5 on a suspended license.

USC apologizes to Irish

Los Angeles — Southern California linebacker Chris Galippo apologized Monday for claiming Notre Dame quit in the final minutes of the 20th-ranked Trojans’ victory in South Bend last weekend.

USC coach Lane Kiffin called Irish coach Brian Kelly to apologize for Galippo’s comments after the 31-17 victory for the Trojans (6-1), whose dominant performance put them back in the Top 25 after a four-week absence.

Galippo is a senior who was recruited by Notre Dame out of high school. He shared his teammates’ surprise when the Irish declined to use their timeouts in the fourth quarter to slow the Trojans’ final drive, which ended the game by consuming nearly seven minutes on 10 consecutive runs by tailback Curtis McNeal.

“At the end there, when they didn’t call those timeouts, they just quit,” Galippo said after the game. “That’s what Notre Dame football is about. They’re not anything like USC.”

Galippo apologized on his Twitter feed and in a statement from the school.

Neuheisel feeling heat

Los Angeles — For better and worse, not much is slick about Rick Neuheisel these days.

The UCLA coach is no longer the flashy young offensive mastermind who engineered big victories and endured messy departures from his previous top jobs at Colorado and Washington.

Neuheisel is now a profoundly earnest 50-year-old man in an old-fashioned sweater vest with a small Bruins helmet embroidered on the breast, looking very much like a direct coaching descendant of John Wooden, one of his idols.

Slick Rick, the nickname once slapped on him by envious opponents and supporters alike, no longer fits a coach who has strived to do everything by the book at UCLA — and who might be five games away from losing his dream job anyway.

“I don’t think that this is the end by any stretch of the imagination,” Neuheisel said Monday while the Bruins (3-4, 2-2 Pac-12) began preparations for California. “As a matter of fact, I look at it as a beginning, and look at it as a fantastic challenge that we should embrace. Adversity is nothing more than an opportunity camouflaged.”

Neuheisel began his fourth season by acknowledging he’s on a hot seat, and his Bruins haven’t done much to cool it down in the last three months.

After an embarrassing 36-point loss at Arizona last week punctuated by a brawl and six suspensions, Neuheisel might be nearly out of time to show enough progress to keep his dream job.

World Series draws low ratings

Arlington, Texas — With World Series ratings close to a record low last weekend, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig expects a rebound this week with the possibility of the first Game 7 since 2002.

The St. Louis Cardinals’ 16-7 rout of the Texas Rangers in Game 3 drew the second-lowest World Series rating ever, but viewership increased for the tighter Game 4.

Selig already is looking ahead to bidding for a national television contract to replace the seven-year deals with Fox and Turner Sports that are bringing the sport about $3 billion from 2007-13.

“We’ll have more competition than we’ve ever had from people who are willing to pay money. That tells me more than anything,” Selig said Monday before Game 5.