BRIEFLY : REPORTS: OKLAHOMA TO NAME STOOPS COACH.

Byline: Daily News Wire Services

Bob Stoops will become Oklahoma's new head football coach, three Oklahoma City television stations reported Monday.

KFOR-TV said it had confirmed with several sources that Stoops, the defensive coordinator at Florida, has agreed to take the Oklahoma job. Later, KOCO and KWTV also reported that Stoops had been chosen.

None of the reports identified the sources, and university officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking confirmation.

Stoops was among the names mentioned as a possible candidate to succeed John Blake, fired Nov. 22. Blake was 12-22 in three seasons.

Fred Goldsmith, who in 1994 coached Duke to its only winning football season of the decade, was fired with four years remaining on his contract. Duke finished 4-7 this year, its fourth straight losing season.

Northeast Louisiana University, which went 20-36 the past five seasons playing such national powers as Colorado, Georgia, Auburn, UCLA, Arkansas, Florida and Arizona, fired head football coach Ed Zaunbrecher.

Jerry Azumah capped a record career at New Hampshire by running away with the Walter Payton Award as the nation's top player in Division I-AA. Azumah rushed for 2,195 yards and 23 touchdowns this season and set four I-AA career records - most yards (6,193), most all-purpose yards (8,376), most points (424) and most rushing TDs (60).

The University of Hawaii has fired football coach Fred vonAppen after a winless season that extended the nation's longest losing streak to 18 games.

BOXING: Laurent Boudouani retained the WBA super welterweight title by stopping an exhausted Terry Norris in the final seconds of the ninth round in Paris.

Felix ``Tito'' Trinidad has signed a $42.9 million contract with promoter Don King for at least three fights per year over four years, the boxer's father says.

Former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe, who is awaiting a probable jail sentence in North Carolina for kidnapping his estranged wife and five children in June, had an earlier assault charge involving his wife set aside.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL: For the second time in Division I history, the men's and women's basketball teams at Connecticut are simultaneously ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press polls. UConn is the only major school to hold the top rank in both polls at the same time. The Huskies also achieved that distinction on Feb. 13, 1995.

UCLA is 18th in the men's poll and 10th in the women's.

Maryland signed coach Gary Williams to a seven-year contract extension through the 2005 season.

MOTOR SPORTS: The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, once the exclusive domain of the Indianapolis 500, is expected to add a Formula One race in 2000. Speedway president Tony George has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday amid speculation the international race series would return to the United States for the first time since 1991.