PULLMAN, Wash. - All that one-game-at-a-time talk truly means something now.

There's only one regular season contest left for the Oregon State football team to help determine its postseason.

And it's the Civil War.

What makes this edition of the in-state rivalry more intriguing is what's at stake: This year, the winner goes to the Rose Bowl.

The 20th-ranked Beavers dispatched Washington State 42-10 with ease on Saturday night before a crowd of 16,167 in Martin Stadium.

After two early Pacific-10 Conference losses, the Beavers (8-3, 6-2) have won four straight and six of their last seven games. They went from scrambling for bowl eligibility to the top of the conference.

"I haven't had any conversations with anyone (on the team) about playing the Rose Bowl," quarterback Sean Canfield said. "My family mentions it a little bit, just what could be at stake. Obviously everyone knows what's out there."

Mike Riley gave a more raucous speech than usual to his team after the win over the last-place Cougars (1-10, 0-8).

The normally mild mannered coach let the emotions fly and praised his players for what they have done throughout the season. Then he led them in an intense hip-hip-hooray cheer.

These kinds of opportunity don't come to the Beavers very often, so they savored the moment.

"I'm really proud of how these guys have battled back to this point," Riley said. "Whatever happens with that (bowl scenario), we'll still have one of the great matchups for the Civl War - ever. It's pretty exciting stuff. Both of these teams have had outstanding years, and got here on different paths."

No. 11 Oregon rallied to beat unranked Arizona on Saturday night. That set up the winner-takes-all scenario.

Oregon goes into the Civil War one game ahead of the Beavers. An OSU win creates a tie and a share of the conference title.

The first Rose Bowl tiebreaker is the head-to-head meeting.

"We've been close to winning the Pac-10 title for a while now," linebacker Keaton Kristick said. "We are just excited about the possibility again."

If the Beavers lose, their postseason depends on what Arizona and USC do the rest of the season. They are the only teams OSU could tie with for second in the conference with three losses.

The Beavers lose tiebreakers to both of teams for a Holiday Bowl berth. Arizona and USC play each other and have their rivalry game. The winner of the game must lose to their rival for OSU to get to the Holiday Bowl

The Sun Bowl won't take them back because they were there last season. So the chances are a loss likely drops OSU into either the Las Vegas Bowl or Emerald Bowl.

All the Beavers have in their hands is winning in Autzen Stadium. And that's not an easy task.

The Beavers are 23-25-3 in Eugene, but they did win there recently: a double overtime victory in 2007.

"I'm positive we are going to prep for this game harder than we prepared for a game this year," Kristick said. "We are excited. It's just another opportunity to do something like this."

Cliff Kirkpatrick covers the Oregon State football team for the Corvallis Gazette-Times. Read more about the Beavers on his blog at cliffkirkpatrick.mvourtown.com.