ColossalConferences.

The Mega4ce.

The Big 16, the Pac-16, the ACC 16 and the SEC Sweet 16.

The Super Sixty-Four playing to de- termine a national champion in The GARGANTU1 BOWL!

That’s incredible. That’s inevitable.

And Colorado State, Fresno State, Iowa State and Sam Houston State are powerless to stop the future state of college football. Pittsburgh and Syracuse are the latest rats to jump from sinking conferences. The Panthers and the Orange will depart from the Big East, which would be left with six football teams, for the Atlantic Coast Conference, which would swell to 14 teams.

Texas A&M is shifting to the SEC (as its 13th school) from the Big 12, reducing the conference not from a dozen, but to just nine schools, for now. Texas and Oklahoma are in serious discussions with the Pac-12, and would take Texas Tech and Oklahoma State along with them to make a Pac-16.

On Monday, the board of regents of Texas and Oklahoma separately gave power to their university presidents to choose their conference — the Big 12 or the Pac-12.

If (when) they bolt, the Little Five Conference will be composed of Missouri, Kansas State, Kansas, Iowa State and Baylor. Where have you gone, Southwest and Big Eight conferences?

Colorado and Utah joined the Pac-10 this year, making it the Pac-12, and Nebraska became the 12th member — yes — of the Big Misnomer Conference.

“I like where we are,” CU athletic director Mike Bohn said Saturday. The Buffs escaped from the likes of Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State and they don’t wish to be put back with that crowd in some bizarre division that doesn’t include one California, Oregon or Washington school.

Consider this potential amalgamation: Pac-16 East (?): Colorado, Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State. Ugh.

Pac-16 West: UCLA, USC, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State.

Hooking horns with Texas again defeats the purpose of the Buffs roaming to the Pac-12.

How about this SEC: East Division — Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Louisville, University of South Florida; West Division — LSU, Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, TCU (which is headed to the Big East next year from the Mountain West, but now might find a new home).

The Big Ten (16 teams) would be: East — Penn State, Ohio State, Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Iowa State; West — Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Kansas State, Wisconsin and Missouri.

And the Atlantic Coast Conference divisions would become: North — Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Maryland, Virginia Tech, Virginia, West Virginia and Cincinnati; South — Florida State, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami, Wake Forest and Duke.

To keep pace with the Big Boys, the Mountain West and the Western Athletic Conference — which split in 1999, but have headquarters on the Front Range — would have to reunite. The revised Mountain Western Conference in football would be: Mountain — CSU, Air Force, Wyoming, New Mexico, Boise State, UNLV, San Diego State and Baylor; Western — Hawaii, San Jose State, Idaho, Utah State, New Mexico State, Fresno State, Nevada and Louisiana Tech. (I know it doesn’t fit.)

Division champions in the four major conferences would play for conference titles, then advance to the national playoff semifinals and The Colossus of Rhodes Bowl. Sorry, the Mountain Western, Notre Dame (which hasn’t been deserving in years, anyway) and the leftover schools would have to be content to participate in the also- ran bowls.

I don’t like what is happening, but we might as well stand on the south side of Interstate 70 at the Genesee exit in front of a runaway 16-wheeler and complain for all the good it does.

In the mid-1970s, I wrote a column predicting that one day the NCAA would be reduced to a few super conferences.

More than a quarter century later . . .

Conferences are losing their identities, their traditions and their rivalries, and selling their souls.

They’re doing it for money, and the bottom line is the bottom line. The college presidents and athletic directors don’t care to share a pittance with the players, though. Some educational institutions, huh?

People who want a true national championship in college football in the worse way will get one.

In the worse way.

Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com