College Football Game Length in 2025

Editor’s note: This article has been updated for the entire 2025 college football season.

The 2025 college football season will be a slight respite in terms of realignment, although that will change again for the 2026 season when the Pac-12 returns. For the previous two years, I’ve been documenting the impact timing rule changes have had on the game length. In 2023, the clock no longer stopped after a first down, unless it was the final two minutes of each half. In 2024, a two-minute warning was implemented as a way to “standardize” timing runoffs. 2025 doesn’t have any changes on that magnitude, except for penalties or charged timeouts to teams faking injuries.

The results in 2023 and 2024 with the rules changes? For 2023, the games decreased by 4 minutes per game in the FBS, but that decrease was erased in 2024 as game length increased by 4 minutes. The table below shows the game length for the FBS, FCS, NCAA Division 2, and NCAA Division 3 from 2013 through 2024. The cells with “N/A” are due to the lack of available data. The 2025 season will be updated as the season goes on.

2025 Weekly Updates

1/20/26 Update (Final): The last FBS games have been completed and the season ended at an average of 3 hours and 26 minutes for game length. This is lower than the 3:27 from 2024, but higher than 3:23 from 2023, when the first set of timing rule changes took effect. Despite all three divisions using the same timing rules, all of them have seen game length increase. FBS, FCS, and D2 had the first changes in 2023 and the second set in 2024. Meanwhile, D3 didn’t have a change in timing rules for 2023 and implemented them all in 2024.

FBS went from 3:23 in 2023 to 3:26 in 2025. FCS went from 3:16 in 2023 to 3:18 in 2025. D2 went from 3:01 in 2023 to 3:10 in 2024. D3 implemented all the changes in 2024 and went from 2:50 that season to 2:53 in 2025. Make of those numbers what you will.

1/6/26 Update: With only three games left in the college football season, I’ll provide an update for the FCS, D2, and D3. FCS games were one minute longer in 2025 compared to 2024. The last five years of FCS games, which include seasons before the timing changes, have been between 3:16 and 3:18. NCAA D3 clocked in at 2 hours and 53 minutes, which is similar to each season since 2022.

For NCAA D2, the game length was 3 hours and 10 minutes in 2025. The NCAA’s data says the game length data is final for 2025, but it’s actually missing the championship game. It doesn’t have an impact on the final numbers since it lasted 2 hours and 56 minutes, which is between the average times for Ferris State and Harding. I can’t draw any meaningful comparisons to 2024 because there wasn’t any data last year on the NCAA’s site. Game time was up 9 minutes compared to 2023, when the first set of rule changes was implemented. Pre-rule changes, the game time was also 3 hours and 1 minute in 2022.

For the FBS, game length is averaging 3 hours and 26 minutes for 2025, with the College Football Playoff semifinals and championship games remaining. That is one minute lower than 2024 (3:27) and three minutes higher than 2023 (3:23).

11/30/25 Update (Week 14): The final week of the regular season took place at the FBS level, while the other three are now in the playoffs. There was no change across the board for game length. I wouldn’t expect much change at this point. I will provide one final update after all the FBS, FCS, D2, and D3 playoffs have wrapped up.

11/23/25 Update (Week 13): It was a week of minimal change across the board. The FBS has one final week of regular season action, while the FCS, D2, and D3 are into playoff action. I don’t expect much change at this point, with maybe another decrease of a minute or two.

11/16/25 Update (Week 12): Three of the four groups saw game length decrease by one minute. D2 stayed the same at 3:11, but the average is 3 hours, 10 minutes, and 30 seconds. Just one fewer second and it would have been a clean sweep. The D2 and D3 playoffs are starting next week, so don’t expect drastic changes. The FBS still has two weeks left in the regular season, while the FCS has one more. We’ll see if there are any significant decreases in the FBS soon enough.

11/11/25 Update (Week 11): Once again, there was a modest improvement in game length for FCS, D2, and D3, with all dropping by a minute. The FBS is still at 3:27, but fell by roughly 30 seconds week-over-week. Still might be a chance the FBS gets to 3:25 before the season ends. Maybe.

11/2/25 Update (Week 10): Tracking back to Week 9 for a second, the D3 data was eventually updated and it showed a decrease of one minute. I didn’t think that required a separate note on this page, but I did include the data in the tables and charts.

As for Week 10, all four groups showed a decrease, with FBS, FCS, and D2 dropping by a minute. D3 had a two-minute decrease this week. I think there are a few more minutes left to drop for FCS, D2, and D3. As for the FBS, I think it could reach 3:25, but beyond that… I have my doubts. We’ll see though!

10/26/25 Update (Week 9): For some reason, the D3 data wasn’t updated on the NCAA stats repository, so there’s nothing to report there. I’ll keep checking to see if the data becomes available. For the FBS, game length remained the same this week, while FCS and D2 fell by one minute.

10/19/25 Update (Week 8): There was a slight regression this week across college football for game length, except for D3. There were storms throughout the central US and led to some games having multiple delays. Despite those, the FBS and D2 saw a one-minute increase, while the FCS held at 3:25. D3 actually fell by a minute to 2:58.

10/12/25 Update (Week 7): It was more of the same as we approach the midway point of the 2025 college football season. The FBS game length stayed the same, but the FCS, D2, and D3 continued a slow march downward. I’d expect those three to continue the regression to the mean, but I’m not sure what to expect from the FBS. Maybe a few minutes lower by the season’s end?

10/5/25 Update (Week 6): The game length is trending lower for a third straight week. The FBS was down about a minute, the FCS was down 3 minutes, D2 was down 2 minutes, and D3 was down 3 minutes. The FBS is currently at 3 hours and 27 minutes, which was the final length for 2024. FCS, D2, and D3 are all 10 minutes above the final tallies for the 2024 season.

9/28/25 Update (Week 5): It was another week of small decreases for FBS, FCS, and D2, but D3 saw a drop of five minutes in game length to 3 hours and 5 minutes. Notably, all four groups saw a slight increase in plays per game. We might continue to see some small decreases in game length over the next few weeks.

9/21/25 Update (Week 4): All four divisions saw a decrease of about 3 minutes in game length following week 4. The number of weather delays fell this week, which led to the overall decrease. Will the trend continue? All four are likely to come down some more as the season goes on.

9/14/25 Update (Week 3): The data is up for all of the NCAA and it doesn’t show much positive change. There were more weather-related delays in week 3, although fewer than in week 2. We’ll continue to monitor the game length and plays per game on a weekly basis, but it doesn’t look good so far. Still, it’s been less than a quarter of the season and the numbers should fall.

9/8/25 Update (Week 2): Normally, I don’t go back and see if the NCAA updated its data, but the lack of missing D2 numbers made me keep an eye out in case it was posted late. Well, it was. I decided to grab all the numbers again for FBS, FCS, and D3 while I was at it. That was a good call because the game lengths were way higher.

The FBS game time is up 10 minutes from week 1 (3 hours and 32 minutes), FCS is up 11 minutes to 3:34, and D2 is up 13 minutes at 3:24. D3 is at 3:09 with the new numbers, one minute less than Sunday’s data. Remember, there were long delays along the East Coast and in the Southeastern US area. However, the previous two years also had a week when weather-plagued games across the country.

9/7/25 Update (Week 2): Week two is in the books, but in classic fashion, the D2 data was not updated this week. Yikes. The big story was weather delays on the East Coast, which led to game length increasing by 5 minutes for the FBS and FCS. It’s difficult to take anything away given that context. D3 played its first week and starts at 3 hours and 10 minutes, way up from the 2:50 for 2024. Expect that one to decrease drastically over the next month.

8/31/25 Update (Week 1): The NCAA updated its website, and a welcome surprise for 2025: the D2 data is back! The FBS is showing a roughly five-minute decrease from the 2024 season for week 1, with three games left to be played. FCS is up 6 minutes, from 3:17 in 2024 to 3:23 after week 1 in 2025. D2 is at 3:11 following week 1, without a comparison to last year. D3 will begin play next week and hopefully will have data.

Note: I made one manual correction to the NCAA’s data. Tennessee Tech’s game length is listed at 23 hours and 53 minutes in the NCAA’s data, but using the ESPN+ recording, it was closer to 3 hours and 2 minutes. I typically don’t correct the data unless it’s egregiously wrong, as in this case. The correction brought the FCS average game length down from 3:34 to 3:23.

8/26/25 Update (Week 0): The Week 0 game times were posted the morning of Tuesday, August 26. With only a handful of games played last weekend, there is really nothing to take away from the first numbers. Hopefully, this year’s data will include D2 game length and be posted in a timely manner each week.

2025 Weekly Change Tables and Charts

Additional Yearly Charts (Updated Through 2025 Season Week 14)

Photo credit to AP Photos