Temperature-dependent absorption, photoluminescence excitation, and spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements are employed to accurately determine compositional and temperature dependences of the conduction band (CB) states in GaNP alloys. The CB edge and the higher lying Γc CB minimum (CBM) are shown to exhibit an apparently anticrossing behavior, i.e., the N-induced redshift of the bandgap energy is accompanied by a matching blueshift of the Γc CBM. The obtained data can be phenomenologically described by the band anticrossing model. By considering strong temperature dependence of the energy of the interacting N level, which has largely been overlooked in earlier studies of GaNP, the interacting N level can be attributed to the isolated substitutional NP and the coupling parameter is accurately determined.