SF Chronicle 49ers Insider App: On the Brink

By Art Spander
49ers Insider, San Francisco Chronicle iPad App

NEW ORLEANS – He was angry. He was proud. The call went against him, went against Jim Harbaugh, went against the 49ers. They had lost the Super Bowl. The unblemished record was no more. The dream was finished.

And yet Harbaugh saw what we saw, a football team, a 49ers team, which was dead in the water, which trailed by three touchdowns and came within a play of victory.

“We were right on the brink of winning it,” said Harbaugh. He’s not a could-have, might-have sort of guy. He’s absolute, unforgiving. This time he also was correct.

Right on the brink. Right where a Joe Montana or a Steve Young might have pulled it. Right where a Colin Kaepernick could not quite do it.

Harbaugh, after again losing to his brother John, the Ravens coach -- in 2011 in a regular season game, this time, Sunday night in Super Bowl XLVII, 34-31 -- was frustrated and disappointed, honest and, yes, angry.

They say never to let a game or tennis match, any sporting event, come down to an official’s call, because then you’re at the mercy of someone making a judgment. Yet that’s exactly what occurred.

Fourth down and goal. Fourth down and five yards from probable victory, although with 1 minute 46 seconds remaining and Joe Flacco – the game’s MVP – at quarterback for the Ravens, who knows?

Kaepernick, rolling hot after a mediocre start, a start echoed by the supposedly efficient 49er defense, threw toward Michael Crabtree in the end zone. Crabtree couldn’t get to the ball, couldn’t get there because TV replays showed he was seemingly held by Baltimore’s Jimmy Smith.

Harbaugh went ballistic. He yanked at his cap. He screwed up his face in a grimace beyond description. He shouted at the official. He went unheard, and the 49ers went winless, incurring their first loss in a Super Bowl after success the previous five times.

“We want to handle this with class and grace,” said Harbaugh, not exactly the epitome of either when displeased. “We had several opportunities to win the game. We didn’t play our best game. We competed and battled back. Yes, there’s no question in my mind that there was pass interference and then a hold on the last one.”

This was not a game we expected the 49ers to play, to get beat by Flacco on third-down passes, to turn the ball over on a fumble by LaMichael James and an interception by Kaepernick, to give up a 108-yard kickoff return to open the second half and fall behind, 28-6.

Yet, conversely, this was the game we did expect the 49ers to play, to hang in, to hold on, to wake up the echoes, and the 49ers fans among the 71,024 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. There was Kaepernick finding Crabtree, there was Frank Gore slipping into the end zone, there was David Akers kicking his third field goal of the game. Suddenly, 28-6, was 28-23.

Kaepernick, with 302 yards, joined Montana and Young as Niners quarterbacks who have completed more than 300 yards passing in a Super Bowl game. Kaepernick, with 62 yards rushing, did not join Montana and Young as Niners quarterbacks who have won Super Bowls.

There was a touch of the surreal to the game, and not only because the Ravens had the ball some five minutes more than San Francisco or because Flacco picked apart the Niners' secondary.

But because late in the third quarter there was a power outage at the Superdome, half the lights over the field and all the television sets and Internet connections going out for 34 minutes. It was similar to what happened Dec. 19, 2011 at Candlestick Park before and during a 49ers-Steelers game.

When power was restored for a Super Bowl game which would last 4 hours 14 minutes – but was one play short for San Francisco – the Niners started their rally. “We got a spark,” said Harbaugh, “and we weren’t going to look back after that.”

Others will. They’ll wonder why, after a two-week break and numerous practices, on the first play from scrimmage, a 20-yard pass from Kaepernick to Vernon Davis, Davis was penalized for lining up in an illegal formation. They’ll wonder why the final sequence was composed of three straight incomplete passes from Kaepernick.

And, as Harbaugh, they’ll wonder about the non-call. But Crabtree will not, to his credit.

“It was the last play,” said Crabtree, “and I’m not going to blame it on the refs.”

Neither will Kaepernick. “We had to score,” said the quarterback. “The fourth down play wasn’t the original option. It’s something I audibled at the line, based on the look they gave us. I was just trying to give (Crabtree) a chance.”

He gave him one. He gave the 49ers one. They were unable to take advantage of it.

Copyright 2013 San Francisco Chronicle