The rankings don’t start until ~2 months into the season to avoid as much preseason influence as possible. The rankings are also fresh each week as well, as opposed to the AP Poll voters largely using momentum voting.

The committee batches groups of teams in small groups of 3-8 teams and debates them and moves the teams around in this groups based on statistical data and other subjective info. At no point do they reference the AP poll (or the coaches poll). it is not a data point available to the committee. Even if they did have a subconscious bias of what the AP rankings are, the way they are grouping teams into small batches and debating them among the other teams would remove any of that bias. It goes through multiple rounds of this (the CFP website says 7 rounds), before teams are ultimately ranked 1-25.

People have this idea in their head that each committee member is ranking the teams 1-25 and very aware of what the AP already says when they do that ranking, but that’s not how it works at all.

The AP Poll is for fun. It is not used in the CFP rankings that seed the teams for the playoffs. The only poll that kinda somewhat matters is the final poll (because there is no final CFP ranking). But if anything, the AP poll is biased towards the CFP rankings more than the other way around.

Here’s the CFP’s website: .https://collegefootballplayoff.com/sports/2016/10/24/selection-committee-protocol

Here’s Nicole Auerbach’s article detailing the simulated rankings that the CFP committee runs for the journalists: .https://www.nbcsports.com/college-football/news/college-football-playoff-selection-committee-media-mock-exercise-florida-state-alabama-michigan-texas