Are you aware that isn’t correct for many seasons?
If you are, how can your description be appropriate with the inconsistencies between non-considered regular season games, considered bowls, and same year polls from the 50s through the early 70s?
Here is the verbiage on the history of the AP poll (with reference to UPI) from Wikipedia. I was aware of this because my parent's contemporaries often talked about the bowl games being more of a reward. Note that last two sentences at the bottom.
The AP college football poll's origins go back to the 1930s. The news media began running their own polls of sports writers to determine, by popular opinion, the best college football teams in the country. One of the earliest such polls was conducted by the AP in November
1934.
[3] In
1935, AP sports editor
Alan J. Gould declared a three-way tie for national champion in football between
Minnesota,
Princeton, and
Southern Methodist.
[4] Minnesota fans protested and a number of Gould's colleagues led by
Charles "Cy" Sherman suggested he create a poll of sports editors instead of only using his own list.
[5] The next year the weekly AP college football poll was born,
[5][6] and has run continuously from
1936.
[7]
Due to the long-standing historical ties between individual college football conferences and high-paying
bowl games like the
Rose Bowl and
Orange Bowl, the NCAA had not held a tournament or championship game to determine the
national champion of what is now the highest division, NCAA Division I, Football Bowl Subdivision (the Division I, Football Championship Subdivision and lower divisions do hold championship tournaments). As a result, the public and the media began to acknowledge the leading vote-getter in the final AP poll as the national champion for that season.
While the AP poll currently lists the Top 25 teams in the nation, from 1936 to
1988, the wire service only ranked twenty teams, except from
1961 to
1967, when only ten teams were recognized. The AP expanded to the current 25 teams in
1989.
[8]
The AP began conducting a preseason poll in
1950.
[9][10]
At the end of the
1947 season, the AP released an unofficial post-bowl poll which differed from the regular season final poll.
[11] Until the 1968 college football season, the final AP poll of the season was released following the end of the regular season, with the lone exception of the 1965 season. In
1964,
Alabama was named the national champion in the
final AP Poll following the completion of the regular season, but lost in the
Orange Bowl to
Texas, leaving
Arkansas as the only undefeated, untied team after the Razorbacks defeated
Nebraska in the
Cotton Bowl. In
1965, the AP's decision to wait to crown its champion paid handsomely, as top-ranked
Michigan State lost to
UCLA in the
Rose Bowl, number two
Arkansas lost to
LSU in the
Cotton Bowl, and fourth-ranked
Alabama defeated third-ranked
Nebraska in the
Orange Bowl, vaulting the Crimson Tide to the top of the AP's
final poll (Michigan State was named national champion in the final
UPI Coaches Poll, which did not conduct a post-bowl poll).
Beginning in
1968, the post bowl game poll became permanent and the AP championship reflected the bowl game results. The UPI did not follow suit with the coaches' poll until the
1974 season.
