Look how high they sit on their imaginary horses, the faceless riders of a self-righteous cavalry, galloping into the town square to point and scold.

What Oregon State and Washington State did by decapitating the Mountain West, they argue, is no better than what was done to the schools abandoned by the Pac-12 claim by Oregon and Washington, UCLA and USC.

Hypocritesthey charge breathlessly! Quack! The raiders of the night reorganization!

The Beavs and Cougs are no better than the former brothers they’ve spent the past year mocking and bitterly blaming.

They say this with a smug grin.

What an incredible privilege, or delusion, you must experience not to see the difference between these two things. To not distinguish between trophy hunting and hunting for survival. To blame a crash on the highway on the driver of the car that is pushed into yours and not on the one who caused the chain reaction.

The hypocrites are the fugitives’ fans, defenders of free enterprise only when it suits them, who want to be freed from the scorn, and presumably guilt, that the Pac-12 dared to play in the mud. As if that mud weren’t really quicksand preparing them to be swallowed up by a ruthless and soulless underworld.

“The difference is,” Beavers athletic director Scott Barnes told The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Nick Daschel, “we didn’t have a home. We had to find a home. And others did have a home.”

Oregon and Washington will tell you that they had to leave the Pac-12. That they had no choice. Fine, although there is a difference between jumping from a canoe to a catamaran and being lost at sea without even an oar.

But this isn’t even about the Ducks, once and for all. Try USC and UCLA. If you’re looking for hands dripping with Mountain West blood, look there, not Corvallis and Pullman.

“There’s a domino effect,” Barnes said. “If one conference is dismantled, there are problems.”

Yes, the Pac-12 has taken a bite out of the Mountain West, seriously damaging that conference and destroying its credibility, if not threatening its very existence. Anyone with a conscience can look at that with a reasonable amount of remorse.

“I think it’s horrible that schools are lagging behind,” Barnes said, “because we’ve been dealing with this for a year.”

But let’s be realistic about the world we live in. As Michael Corleone said to Carlo, “Don’t tell me you’re innocent. Because it insults my intelligence and makes me very angry.”

The Mountain West was formed when five members of the Western Athletic Conference, led by BYU and Utah, planned to split off and form a new conference, abandoning the likes of UNLV, Fresno State and TCU. The WAC itself was the product of betrayal, as Utah and BYU (again) abandoned Montana and Colorado State and the rest of the old Skyline Eight.

And so it goes throughout the depraved history of college football, all the way back to Judas and Jesus of Nazareth.

Talk about inflation. It used to cost 30 pieces of silver to betray your friends. The Pac-12 is handing out checks for $10 million.

There are no good actors in this world. No altruists. Perhaps OSU and WSU were unblemished at one point, mistakenly believing they were protected from the dangers of redistricting by the rest of the Pac-12. But they learned.

Oregon State is no longer a passenger on the redistricting roller coaster. They are active participants.

Irony abounds, yes. They’re plundering the conference they were allied with. An unthinkable betrayal attempt — if the Pac-12 hadn’t been on the wrong end of the exact same thing with The Alliance, George Kliavkoff’s much-ballyhooed handshake syndicate with the Big Ten and ACC that couldn’t last a year before the first stab in the back.

The new Pac-12 has learned survival techniques from its environment and put them into practice.

Michael was the sweet, innocent Corleone, remember. He only broke down when there was no other choice. For the survival of his family.