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Collegiate athletics — at least when it comes to those considered the “major sports” — exist in a world of their own. A world, it often seems to those of us on the outside, that operates without rules.

Or, at least, rules that are rewritten while the goalposts are moving.

So it came as no surprise when the University of Oregon announced its intention to leave the PAC-12 conference in 2024 for the greener pastures of the BIG 10 — a conference which in recent years has gobbled up so many schools from sea to shining sea that it now stretches 2,899.5 miles along I-80 from Eugene to Piscataway, New Jersey.

Get ready for the start of that intense Oregon-Rutgers rivalry everyone!

The BIG 10, in fact, will have 18 schools once it absorbs Oregon, the University of Washington, UCLA and USC — creating a nomenclatural distraction for the conference that will bother only those with just a passing interest.

The BIG 10 will remain “The BIG 10” primarily for branding (read that as “money”) purposes. It’s well-known, well-established and its fans and media partners are more concerned with media markets than misnomers.

No sooner had the Ducks and the others skedaddled east with their tails between their legs than three other about-to-be former PAC-12 schools — Arizona, Arizona State and Utah — decided to shuffle off to the Big 12 Conference which, once those schools (and previously announced Colorado) get there in 2024, will have 16 schools … but the same name.

The PAC-12, which has roots going back more than 100 years, would be reduced to just four schools — Oregon State, Washington State, Stanford and Cal-Berkeley — once the dust settles.

“This is one of our situations where we’re humans,” said Oregon President Karl Scxholz. “We are capable of more than one emotion at a given time. In one hand, we are phenomenal excited about the opportunity ahead. On another hand, we feel real pain for our colleagues across the Pac-10.”

The Beavers, as you might imagine, were mad enough to start, well, a civil war.

“I’m furious,” said Scott Barnes, Oregon State’s athletic director. ““The great history and tradition of this conference has been severely damaged. The best interest of the student athlete hasn’t been served.”

From the outside looking in, this is a mess.

While the major revenue-producing collegiate sports, football and basketball, will be unaffected beyond alignment, left unresolved will be the ramifications — and perhaps the fate — of the so-called “minor” sports under each school’s umbrella.

Will it be cost-effective, for instance, to have UO teams in tennis or acrobatics to away matchups against the University of Maryland?

Also, Oregon fans are accustomed to having the bulk of their games played (and televised) in the Pacific Time Zone. The BIG-10 opens an entire slew of starting time possibilities when the Ducks are in, say, Indiana or Nebraska.

No one seems to have the answer to questions such as those at the moment, though, so we’re certainly not going to come up with solutions for them.

What can be said, however, is that this should be a bittersweet moment for fans and alumni who feel as though a significant part of their college memories have been left by the side of the road.

A road that now runs all the way to New Jersey.