By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — Time had gone backwards, unlike the persistent runs of Frank Gore. There we were, back in the 20th century, the fans at Candlestick Park doing the wave — in this final year of the old stadium, anything is acceptable — the 49ers employing a pound-it-out, eat-up-the-clock offense.
A fourth-quarter drive that covered 89 yards and nine and a half minutes, old-fashioned but wonderfully effective, as 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh agreed.
The sort of drive, with eight straight runs in one sequence, that Harbaugh’s coach at Michigan, the late Bo Schembechler, would have loved.
“Yes,” said Harbaugh, “he would have. He would have loved it very much. Somewhere, he’s up there smiling.”
And then Harbaugh, already feeling good after the Niners on Sunday won their third in a row, defeating the Arizona Cardinals, 32-20, began to smile himself.
“It was a huge win,” he said gleefully. “Grinded some meat, playing tough, hard-nosed football, grinding out the running game.
“That was a line coming off the ball, and Frank was determined, and the whole unit, they were determined to move the football and keep the defense off the field that had played so well in that ballgame.”
The Niners ran for 149 yards against the sixth-best rushing defense in the NFL.
They were playing smack-you-in-the-chops football that made Schembechler and Woody Hayes winners in the old Big Ten, a style defined as three yards and a cloud of dust.
Harbaugh, sure, was a quarterback, at Palo Alto High, at Michigan, with the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts. But he despises finesse football. It is his nature. It is his training.
"When I got my first coaching job at the University of San Diego, I called Bo Schembechler and told him,” Harbaugh has explained. “Before he said congratulations, he said, 'Jimmy, tell me you are going to have a tight end that puts his hand in that ground on every snap. Tell me that you are going to have a fullback that lines directly behind the quarterback, and a halfback in the I-formation.'
"'Yes, coach, we will have that.' 'Good, congratulations on getting your job.'"
Now, with the Niners, Harbaugh also has a quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, who can run (18 yards on four carries) as well as throw (16 completions for 252 yards and two touchdowns).
He has a tight end, Vernon Davis, who doesn’t necessarily put his hand in the dirt on every snap but certainly puts his hands around the ball (eight catches for a career-high 180 yards and two TDs).
And most of all, in crunch time, Harbaugh has Gore, who carried 25 times in all, for 101 yards, and seven of the 18 plays on the drive, five of those in succession. That Kendall Hunter powered the final six yards was fine with all concerned, especially Gore, who doesn’t worry about personal statistics.
“Three years with Frank,” said fullback Bruce Miller, “and I just feel he’s getting better and better. He has a passion for the game. He loves the game. He loves the team.”
He definitely enjoys dashing through the gaps or going around the edges, whatever is needed to pick up yardage.
“It felt good,” said Gore of the drive and his contribution. “Especially when their defense knew that we were coming to run the ball at that moment, and we did it. Our O-line made good blocks, our fullback made a good block, the receivers outside made good blocks, and I ran hard.
“When I get in rhythm, I just feel like I can do whatever I want.”
Early on, the Niners couldn’t do what they liked or wanted with the Cardinals, who came into the game with a 3-2 record, as did San Francisco. The Niners, without a first down until there was only a minute left in the first quarter, and then only on a penalty, led only 22-20 into the fourth quarter.
Then 9 minutes 32 seconds and 18 players later, they had the touchdown that meant the game.
“The score was 22-20,” said Darryl Washington, the Arizona linebacker. “We had a chance to get that momentum. We were stopping the run, getting pressure on Kaepernick, but those guys made more plays than we did at the end of the day.”
Kaepernick threw an interception, a tipped ball. Kaepernick lost a fumble when he was sacked. But when required — dare we call it crunch time in the sixth game of the season? — everything worked, especially on that long drive.
“It was huge,” said Kaepernick, a bit more talkative than he's been recently. “We drained the clock on that drive. We had a lot of third-down conversions, had the big fourth-down conversion (a yard by Miller). We said in the huddle, we have to go down and score right now.”
They did. Only in this situation, "right now" means 9 minutes 32 seconds.
4:43 PM