Okay, that's easy to prove.
Let's take last year. The Sunday prior to the first CFP rankings, the AP poll included five undefeated teams. In alphabetical order they were: Army, BYU, Indiana, Miami, and Oregon.
None of these teams had played one another. They had hardly played anyone from each other's conferences. So how to figure out where they stood relative to one another? And relative to all the other teams in the top 25?
That's a complicated question. One would expect some differences of opinion. And some nuance.
Get this: with the exception of Army, the CFP voters put them in exactly the same order as the AP. Not only relative to each other, but also in relation to every other team in the polls:
AP:
#1 Oregon
#4 Miami
#8 Indiana
#9 BYU
CFP:
#1 Oregon
#4 Miami
#8 Indiana
#9 BYU
With the exception of Army, identical. Identical. Look at that numbering. Not close, identical.
Yes, there were exceptions. The CFP put Ohio State and Georgia 2-3 while the AP had them Georgia - Ohio State
But the exceptions were rare. Differences should be common if the CFP were truly starting from scratch, but they were rare.
It is unquestionable. The AP and Coaches polls start the national conversation on which teams are better than which other teams, and drive that conversation for two months. Then the CFP joins in, STARTING FROM THE COMMONALITY OF THAT NATIONAL CONVERSATION.
It's sort of like an athiest thinking he gets his values (don't kill people, don't steal, etc.) out of the ether, rather than from a civilization-wide judeo-christian foundation.
This is intuitively obvious to anyone watching the sport. Come on, admit that you see it.
Go Vols!