OK, that's enough of this rooting for the Ducks stuff; at least for the next couple of weeks.

Seriously, as we start the hype building up to next Thursday's football game between the Oregon State University Beavers and the University of Oregon Ducks - with a berth in the Rose Bowl awaiting the winner - we find ourselves shaking our heads at the remarkable string of events that had to fall exactly into place for this game to become a Civil War for the ages.

Consider the dominoes that had to tumble: Stanford, Washington and Oregon had to beat the University of Southern California to knock the Trojans out of the Rose Bowl hunt. California had to beat Arizona. Cal (a good ally to the Oregon schools this season, as it turns out) then followed up by beating Stanford, eliminating the slight possibility that the Cardinal could have won the Pac-10 conference.

Meanwhile, the Beavers have efficiently gone about their business recently, with wins over Cal, Washington and Washington State.

And the Ducks finished setting the table Saturday night, with a thrilling double-overtime win over Arizona, a game that could have slipped away for the Ducks with a botched snap from center during an extra-point attempt. (Holder Nate Costa managed to corral the ball, and the point after - which tied the game with six seconds to play - was good.) And don't even get us started on the Ducks' fourth-quarter field goal attempt, which hit the upright - and then bounced through for the three points.

The result of all this? Next Thursday night, Dec. 3, the Beavers and the Ducks play a Civil War game in which the winner is guaranteed a spot in the Rose Bowl. Although it has happened that the Civil War has had an outcome in the Pac-10 race, the game never before has been a "win-and-you're-in" affair.

And it's not as if either Oregon or Oregon State regularly shows up to play in the Rose Bowl. (If you're counting, the Ducks have played in four Rose Bowls, the last time in 1995; the Beavers have appeared in three Rose Bowls, but not since 1965.) Both Pittsburgh and Alabama - neither members of the Pac-10 or Big Ten conferences last time we looked - have played in more Rose Bowls than have the Beavers.

So here's our advice: Give in to the hype that's going to be the talk of the town - the talk of the state - over the next week and a half. But be smart and humane - in a word, civil - about it.

You never know when the stars are going to align just like this again - and if history is any indication, it could be another century. All the more reason to enjoy it now.