Words don't mean anything anymore.

Let's get into our Hot Tub Time Machine and go all the way back to the year 1998. The event we are going back to? Bill Clinton's Grand Jury testimony regarding the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

(This isn't a political newsletter. It never has been and it never will be. You may fearlessly read on, dear reader, for there is a point at the end of this.)

Question to President Clinton: Mr. President, I want to, before I go into a new subject area, briefly go over something you were talking about with Mr. Bittman. The statement of your attorney, Mr. Bennett, at Paula Jones deposition, "Counsel is fully aware" – it's page 54, line 5 – "Counsel is fully aware that Ms. Lewinsky has filed, has an affidavit which they are in possession of saying that there is absolutely no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton". That statement is made by your attorney in front Judge Susan Webber Wright, correct?

President Clinton: That's correct.

Question to President Clinton: That statement is a completely false statement.

Whether or not Mr. Bennett knew of your relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, the statement that there was "no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton," was an utterly false statement. Is that correct?

President Clinton: It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. If the – if he – if "is" means is and never has been that is not – that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. But, as I have testified, and I'd like to testify again, this is – it is somewhat unusual for a client to be asked about his lawyer's statements, instead of the other way around. I was not paying a great deal of attention to this exchange. I was focusing on my own testimony. And if you go back and look at the sequence of this, you will see that the Jones lawyers decided that this was going to be the Lewinsky deposition, not the Jones deposition. And, given the facts of their case, I can understand why they made that decision. But that is not how I prepared for it. That is not how I was thinking about it. And I am not sure, Mr. Wisenberg, as I sit here today, that I sat there and followed all these interchanges between the lawyers. I'm quite sure that I didn't follow all the interchanges between the lawyers all that carefully. And I don't really believe, therefore, that I can say Mr. Bennett's testimony or statement is testimony and is imputable to me. I didn't – I don't know that I was even paying that much attention to it.

So we're not here to talk about Monical Lewisnky or Bill Clinton, but that fateful day in 1998 created a wild precedent that, in my opinion, changed the playbook for the future. President Clinton took a word that everyone used in everyday life - 'is' - and created an alternative context that completely changed the way the entire situation was viewed. If he could redefine - or at least re-contextualize - the word 'is' then what's to stop anyone from doing the same thing with any other word?

Now let's get back into the Hot Tub Time Machine to today (and really, all the way back to 2014, but we're focused on today) when the College Football Playoff committee published their official selection protocol. You can read all of the protocols HERE, but I'm going to focus on the very simple mission statement.

MISSION: The committee's task will be to select the best teams, rank the teams for inclusion in the playoff, and then assign the teams to the playoff bracket and their game sites.

The best teams.

The committee protocols claim that there are four principles to determining the best teams - strength of schedule, head-to-head competition, comparative outcomes of common opponents (without incenting margin of victory), and other relevant factors such as unavailability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team's performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance.

Throw all of those principles away when you try to talk about BYU's rating this week. They clearly mean nothing.

BYU has a tougher strength of schedule than Miami, SMU, Notre Dame, and Boise State. BYU has a better strength of record than Miami, Tennessee, Ole Miss, SMU, Notre Dame, and Boise State. BYU has ACTUALLY beaten SMU... on the road! And yet, BYU is #14 in this week's rankings because they looked terrible against Kansas.

If the President of the United States can make the entire country contemplate whether they really understand the definition of the word 'is,' then the College Football Playoff Selection Committee can sure as hell make the entire country contemplate whether anyone understands the definition of the word 'best.'

We - the collective body of college football fans - have allowed this to happen over the course of the last several years. The rise of metrics like FPI and FEI and SP+ and Sagarin and whatever other formulas out there have diverted all of our attention from the results on the field. If your team loses, you are immediately fed a graph to know how badly you lost. If your favorite team's expected points were actually much higher than your favorite teams's real points, you basically won. Sure, you get a loss in your record, but if enough people see the EPA discrepancy and your team is still favored in Las Vegas the next week, the L doesn't really matter.

We define the best teams by using recruiting rankings and advanced analytics to determine who might win a hypothetical game on a neutral field. We don't care what happens in actual games on actual fields between two teams actually playing.

BYU was terrible against Kansas. In no way am I trying to claim that BYU shouldn't have dropped in the rankings this week. But the logic that the committee is using is as unpredictable and unrepeatable as anything that BYU has done on a football field this year. It's supremely obvious to anyone paying attention that there is no selection criteria for the committee to use - there is only brand recognition and TV ratings.

Indiana will lose to Ohio State this weekend. (Please beat the Bucks, Hoosiers. You're our only hope.) After they do, you can expect Indiana to tumble down the rankings similar to the way BYU tumbled. When that happens, look at the teams that will (most likely) fill out the Top 10 in next week's rankings:

Oregon, Ohio State, Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame, Alabama, Miami, Ole Miss, Georgia, and Tennessee.

If you would have asked TV producers to hand-select 10 teams at the beginning of the year to make up their ideal college football playoff based solely on TV ratings, you're probably getting those exact teams. Maybe you would have seen Michigan and USC pop up on a list, but they're so bad that even this committee can't squish them into a 'best' definition. But beyond that? It doesn't matter if you're undefeated or if you have two losses because if you're a brand name, the committee will find a way to define you as one of the best in the sport.

How can this be stopped?

It can't. But the best bet that we have is chaos - complete and utter chaos.

So go Indiana, beat Ohio State.

Go Wake Forest, find a way at Miami.

We're all Florida fans this week, take down Ole Miss.

Get it done in Austin, Kentucky.

We're all rowing the boat with you against Penn State, Minnesota.

CRUSH the Irish, Army.

Save your season with a big win over the Tide, Oklahoma.

UTEP and UMass? We know you won't, but find a way to beat Tennessee and Georgia.

At this point, we cheer for chaos. Chaos is the only thing that will bring sanity back to our sport.