"Jim Harbaugh's overall body of work at Stanford and in San Francisco has been spectacular, but an identical gaffe has now cost his teams massive games at both stops. Harbaugh must correct this mistake to take the next step as a great head coach.
Toby Gerhart's final touch in 2009's Big Game resembled a bowling ball obliterating teetering pins, a 29-yard haul that put Stanford on the verge of stealing a massive contest late.
Frank Gore's last carry in Sunday's Super Bowl XLVII turned into a rumbling 33-yard dash that put his San Francisco 49ers team on the brink of the title-winning touchdown.
The parallels are uncanny. In both situations, head coach Jim Harbaugh never turned to his stud running back thereafter, suddenly shunning his team's massive physical advantage and relying instead on a first-year starting quarterback to daintily finish the job. In 2009, it was clear that California would not have stopped Gerhart, but redshirt freshman Andrew Luck threw two horribly designed passes instead, the last of which was intercepted to seal the game. Golden Bears 34, Cardinal 28.
History repeated itself in 2013 on a bigger stage. After a slow start, the 49ers were gashing the Ravens to the tune of eight yards per carry in the second half. Defensive bedrock Haloti Ngata, Baltimore's primary run stopper, was out with injury. Yet, after Gore's dominant run had fully exposed the Ravens' defense, Harbaugh never gave No. 21 the ball again. Instead, he took Colin Kaepernick -- making only his tenth career start -- out of his element, dialing up three consecutive low-percentage passing plays that removed San Francisco's biggest strengths from the equation. Ravens 34, 49ers 29, an otherwise spectacular drive left incomplete."
http://stanford.scout.com/2/1263901.html
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I have just recently realized the awesome that is Arrested Development and am finishing up the final season.....but because of that I cannot read your posts without hearing them in Buster's voice.gilv13, Finfangirl, Vengeful Odin and 2 others like this.
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Yeah but Harbaugh hears the plays called, he can overrule them if he wanted to... and maybe he was doing that, remember the 49ers had to call timeout during that last set of downs because the play clock was about to run out. Was the delay due to the calls coming in late (it usually is). Harbaugh's a quarterback. Eventually it's going to come out that he wants his quarterback to win the game.
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Pretty sure the run/pass choice is Kaepernick's at the LOS. Balt was showing cover 0, so hard to fault him.
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The 49ers had averaged 8 yards a carry in the 2nd half, and after Gore's run that got them to the 7, they suddenly abandon it. Maybe it was all on Roman making the calls, but I doubt he has complete autonomy on play calling. The Ravens best run stuffer was out, and the defense was tired and on it's heels.
It appears other bay area writers are also questioning the strange play calls on the 49ers last series.
http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_22517953/super-bowl-2013-poole-jim-harbaugh-greg-roman
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I recall Kaepernick patting his helmet to indicate a fade route to Crabtree on the final play. Jimmy Smith recognized it and played it all the way. Kudos to him.Bpk and unluckyluciano like this.
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Ravens did an excellent job of reading what kaepernick was doing pre-snap and fooling him. A lot of times he'd check out of a run, then the 8th man would sprint out of the box at the last second. They also did a great job of reading his cadence.unluckyluciano likes this.
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I think Kaepernick struggles with anticipation throws, and that has a lot to with how he plays in the red zone. -
SFgate article said the play harbaugh called the timeout on was a read option and on the 3rd down play CK checked out of the run because of the coverage.
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Problem is CKap was married to throwing that pass regardless of the coverage, easy for me to say I know but Vernon Davis was wide open in the middle of the field.
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Yea, CK said he audibled to the fade route to Crabs because he saw the blitz...
But I also believed they should've had CK under center and ran the ball on 2nd and 3rd down. We have too much diversity in our run game to be in the shotgun at the 5 yard line and call three consecutive passes. We havent been able to throw for TDs inside the 10 yard line ALL year. I think we've had one TD pass inside the 10 yard line and one 2pt conversion via the pass ALL year out of at least 60 attempts from that range...just not smart game management.
But honestly, you can't play your worst game of the year, as a team and expect to win the Super Bowl. You can't expect to play only half the game and win. We came back and made a valiant effort but you can't come out as unfocused and unprepared for the biggest game of the year as we did and expect to win. Would have been truly remarkable if we had, but just think if we could have played the entire game like we did the final quater and a half? The Ravens made more plays and less mistakes. They deserved it more than we did obviously. -
Well they had one called. The 3rd down play in which they had to call a timeout. Its was a designed run by CK out of the pistol and from the replay, it looks they had it blocked to perfection and CK could have walked in. But he made a line adjustement at the last second and couldn't get the play off. They didn't want to go back to a run because they felt like they had tipped their hand. What could have been...
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This is why it irks me that players don't take it seriously enough when coaches harp on things like avoiding delay of game penalties, and picking up the pace in the huddle, out of the huddle and lining up.
Essentially, what you're saying is, the San Francisco 49ers are Superbowl Champions if your QB can get a play off without letting the play clock run down to zero and not noticing. I men, what a dumb, trivial way to lose a Superbowl (no offense. Because I actually wanted to see you guys score)
That sucks. But a great example of how a tiny detail makes a huge difference. A difference, literally, between winning or losing a Superbowl.
But that's the growing pains of a first time starting QB. I can't imagine how good CK will be after a few years of experience.Fin-Omenal likes this. -
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finfansince72 Season Ticket Holder Club Member
I thought the flaws were mostly in the first half, they played poorly, it showed a lot to me that Harbaugh was able to make some serious adjustments at the half and come out with that performance, they were a few yards from a title, it wasn't a choke or a blow out, they just came up a play short. He's a spectacular young coach, so is his brother.