ore than incidental contact.The problem is determining how much

FARGO, N.D. -- North Dakota State quarterback Easton Stick sat in a deer stand. Defensive end Greg Menard enjoyed home cooking. Offensive lineman Zack Johnson watched Netflix. Running back Lance Dunn did nothing, as in what he called zero exercise.Those were the rewards of the bye that goes to the top seeds for the first week of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. It has translated into an annual three-day hiatus for the five-time defending national champion Bison, who have played more games than any other college football team since 2010.Football is year-round for us, Dunn said. You dont really get that many days off.And when they get back to business, the Bison are nearly unbeatable. They have won 23 straight games after open weeks in the regular season and playoffs since a 2005 home loss to UC Davis. That streak includes 13 home games, five road games and five title games in Frisco, Texas.The No. 1-seeded Bison (10-1) open their quest for six straight Saturday at the Fargodome against the San Diego Toreros (10-1). If the after-bye week numbers werent daunting enough, North Dakota State is 16-0 at home in the FCS playoffs.Bison coach Chris Klieman said the week off is important in a grueling playoff run for FCS teams, which have fewer scholarships and players than their Bowl Subdivision counterparts. Klieman would prefer an FCS playoff system that has 16 instead of 24 teams and ends before Christmas.I just think its an awful lot of football, he said. They arent doing that anywhere, other than at the professional level. Its difficult for guys to keep their bodies fresh, nonstop, from end of July through Christmas.Klieman gave his players and coaches three straight days off, beginning with Thanksgiving Day. Stick took some time to work on his newest hobby, bow hunting. It was too foggy to spot many deer, but the sophomore from Omaha, Nebraska, said the outdoor activity suits his laid-back personality.Ive got no problem just sitting out there and relaxing a little bit, Stick said. It was my first time out there with a bow. Im really excited about that.Stick has started 19 games since his redshirt season, winning all but one. He took over last year when Carson Wentz went down with an injury, and went 8-0, including three playoff victories. Wentz came back to guide the Herd in the championship game.More comfortable, obviously. Been through it before, Stick said about his second postseason run. At playoff time its amped a little bit. But at the same time, its just a game. You have to treat it that way. You cant make it too big. You just go out there and play.Johnson, the left guard who is a candidate for the NFL draft, said about the only move he made during the break was to a store to buy the movie Sausage Party. While he admitted that the respite was pretty nice, he downplayed the toll of playing a nonstop schedule.I dont get sick of it. I love playing football. Its why Im here. Its what I love to do, Johnson said. And now its playoff football. Its win or go home. We want to prove ourselves against the rest of the country.---More AP college football: www.collegefootball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25.Cheap NBA Jerseys China . Nathan MacKinnon, Jamie McGinn and Jan Hejda also scored for the Avalanche, who won despite being outshot 38-23. MacKinnons goal, also on the power play, came with just over a minute remaining. Supply NFL Jerseys . -- Matt Ryan needed one of the best games of his career to lead the Falcons and their depleted offence out of their three-game losing streak last week. http://www.wholesalechinajerseys.net/ . Boucher previously coached the Tampa Bay Lightning and had a 97-78-20 record over two-plus seasons. He was dismissed by the team last March after the Lightning struggled in the lockout-shortened season with a 13-18-1 record. Cheap NFL jerseys China . -- Patrick Reed got an early start in golf. Cheap NFL Jerseys Shop . Once again Jordan Cieciwa (@FitCityJordan) and I (@LynchOnSports) go head to head in our picks. Last weekend at UFC Fight Night 32 my #TeamLynch got the best of #TeamJC by a score of 9-6. Let us know which side youre on for UFC 167 use the hashtag #TeamLynch or #TeamJC on Twitter.PHOENIX -- College basketball had bogged down, the scoring at all-time lows, the wrestling under the basket going through gym roofs across the country.Something had to be done, so the NCAA began implementing rules to clean up and speed up the game.These new rules, put in place over the past few years, have mostly worked. Scoring is up, the games have more movement and flow, the physical play in the post at least toned down a bit.Weve made some inroads, said Dan Gavitt, NCAA vice president of mens basketball championships. The past couple years have been very positive in trying to change the direction we were on, but its an ongoing effort.College basketball began to bog down around the turn of the century as players got bigger and stronger and the game failed to adapt.By the 2012-13 season, scoring in Division I dropped to 67.5 points per game, lowest since 1951-52 -- long before the 3-point shot and shot clock were added. It was the fourth straight season scoring dropped.Shooting percentages and assists dropped, and 3-point shooting dipped to levels not seen since the arc was added in 1986. Fouls also were down, a sign that officials were letting them play, as they say.Once an offensive game, the game shifted toward the defense, the flow of games like being stuck in stop-and-go traffic.So what the NCAA did was turn to rules already in place, asking officials to start carrying them to the letter of the law.No more hand-checking, putting two hands on an opponent, using arm bars or jabbing. The block/charge, the most difficult call in basketball, was altered to limit the big crashes under that occur in every game. A restricted arc was created under the basket to prevent defenders from sliding under offensive players as they rose to the basket.Last season, the shot clock was reduced from 35 to 30 seconds in an effort to speed up the game.The NCAA has added to or tweaked the rules each season, hoping to hone the game into a much more high-scoring, free-flowing form.It certainly worked last season.Scoring rose from 67.2 points per game to 72.6, possessions per game climbed, field goal percentages and assists increased. Teams also averaged one more foul and one more free throw attempt per game.There was a sense a couple years ago that our ggame was favoring the defensive players a little too much, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said.dddddddddddd We were losing some of the excitement, some of the flow, some of the athleticism, some of the scoring that fans seemed to want. I think weve encouraged some of the rule changes that have freed up the flow of play and shifted the balance a little bit more to the offense.This season, the NCAA has asked officials to pay more attention to the physical play in the post and fighting for rebounding position.Theres also a stronger emphasis on preventing defensive players from bellying up on ball handlers, creating a cylinder around the offensive player where any contact is a foul on the defense -- as long as the ball handler is making a normal basketball move.Overall, its made our game better and we need to continue to head in that direction to create as much, what I would call, freedom of movement, getting away from the tug-of-war-type basketball thats taken place in the past, particularly in the post, Washington State coach Ernie Kent said.The rules for the post are still a work in progress.Officials have been asked to call fouls when post players dislodge each other, a defender uses a swim move to get in front of the offensive player or if the defensive players lays on his opponent with more than incidental contact.The problem is determining how much contact is too much. Players have been taught for years to play a certain way in the post and asking them to make drastic changes to that will only slow the game down as fouls are continuously called.Players and coaches always find a way to adapt, but finding the right balance in the post will likely be a gradual process.We have a ways to go still in the low post, Gavitt said. That will be the challenge over the next few years. How do we get at the physical play in the low post without bias to the offensive or defensive player? How do you guard legally in the low post, how do you play offense legally in the low post? I think the game will be better when we move forward with that.---AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley in San Francisco contributed to this report. ' ' '