Is it possible to start with a 0 prestige team and get them to the top

You can get them a long way but you need to be patient. It takes a lot of seasons. I sometimes start my coach at 20 across the board with potential of 85 or 90 across the board. I can get that 0 prestige team to the final Four. Don't remember if I've ever gotten a team a title with that scenario. I like to play Promotion/Relegation and try that once in awhile.

Agree with Wayne.

If you want to progress upwards as quickly as possible, then set Recruiting Difficulty to EASY...that way a low prestige school will be able to recruit higher quality recruits than it would if your recruiting level were normal, high or brutal. Then recruit like your life depends on it. Another thing you may want to do is to coach at a college from a state with a lot of recruits...there will be more highly ranked recruits you can go after at low cost. Also you can go after as many transfer players as you can in the early years even if you have to cut a crumby player...and possibly grab some stronger players than you would have been able to recruit...sometimes you can "steal" a very good player that a low prestige school would have difficulty getting. Additionally, you MAY want to manually move your school GRADUALLY up into higher level conferences when you can do that from the Commissioner page on May 1...you'll recruit better if you're a member of a stronger conference and if you're successful in a better conference than being successful in a lower conference, you'll be likely to get a better seed in the NCAA tourney. But I would NOT suggest moving them up so high that they will be crushed in conference play...better to be successful each season so you have a better chance of getting to the NCAA tourney. Prestige increases are not only related to your record, but also getting to the NCAA tourney and going as far as possible in it.

Of course, you can always manually alter player ratings, but I think that's like cheating...and won't give a true picture of how easy or difficult it is to move the school to the top.

Anyway, try to move from a 0 prestige school to become a national champ and report how you do in the Dynasty Reports section of the forum...would be interesting to see how you do and what works for you and what doesn't and how long it takes.