Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh says the game against Cal is a "very, very, very intense" rivalry.

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By any definition, it's a big game.

But were Stanford to win the Big Game — the rivalry game against Cal on Saturday — it would land in a bowl game for the first time since 2001.

Lose and the Cardinal would finish the season 5-7.

"They're going to be motivated to play the game — for the game," said coach Jeff Tedford, whose 6-4 Golden Bears lost to Stanford last season, after winning five straight. "I'm sure that's a motivation for them, but that doesn't change the way we're going to go about things.

"We're very motivated to win this football game, because we want The Axe back."

The Axe has gone to the winner of the Big Game since 1933. The teams have played since 1892, when the Cardinal won with its student manager, future president Herbert Hoover, on the sideline.

The Golden Bears are tied with Arizona for fourth place in the conference but still get to play hapless Washington in the final game of the season. Unlike Cal, Stanford is playing its final regular-season game.

Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh, who earlier this week declared his loyalty to the school and expressed a desire to sign a contract extension, said rivalry games do not need any explanation.

"You turn the volume up to 12 on a scale of 10," he said. "It's comparable to the NFL, when you play in the playoffs and then you play the Super Bowl, or you play a Monday night game."

In college, Harbaugh experienced perhaps the most heated rivalry in the country — Michigan against Ohio State. Harbaugh said his coach, Bo Schembechler, made it seem "like you had prepared for that game 365 days of the year."

During recruiting in January and February, he said, Michigan and Ohio State competed with each other. During spring practice and summer conditioning and fall practice, the teams used each other for motivation.

Michigan even learned Ohio State's favorite running plays, just so its defense could practice against them all season.

"There are people in this rivalry that are all Stanford, and there's people that are all Cal," Harbaugh said. "The proximity of the two schools, it's intense."

Harbaugh laughed that, as opposed to Michigan and Ohio State, alums are allowed to intermarry.

"It's more intertwined than a lot of other big rivalries, where it's usually divided right down the middle," he said. "I would categorize it as very, very, very intense — but not a bitter rivalry."

At the very least, it has been close. Stanford leads the series 55-44-11. Overall, Cal has scored a measly 25 points more than Stanford — 1,780 to 1,755.

"For the most part, it's a pretty healthy tradition," Tedford said. "You have a lot of people who work together. There's a lot of respect there, as far as that's concerned.

"To me, it's not a nasty rivalry with the fans. With the fans, I don't see the bitterness that (the state of Oregon's) Civil War has.

"They coexist pretty well in the Bay Area, I think."

Tedford would not admit to his team having an added motivation of ending the Cardinal's season. But you know, deep down, the Golden Bears do.

"What their motivations are," Tedford said, "we're not really worried about their motivations."