2012 NFL Playoffs: Jim Harbaugh Cements Coach-of-the-Year Credibility With 49er's Win Over Saints

I'll never forget sitting in an end zone seat, watching my 2010 Notre Dame team struggling against Stanford with Cardinal coach (and former quarterback for the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts) Jim Harbaugh standing ten yards on the field, screaming instructions to his team and suggestions to the the referees. I was not the only among the crowd to notice this: our part of the stadium erupted in jeers and boos, to which Harbaugh just gestured right back, egging us on. What an asshole this guy is, I thought. But the worst part was that his team pummelled mine in the game, 37-14.

Harbaugh spent four years as the Stanford coach, with his teams going 4-8 in his first season and 12-1 in his final one. His win total increased every year. But when Harbaugh signed on as the head coach of the 49ers in January of 2011, his college success was no guarantee of pro success. Guys like Pete Carrol and Charlie Weis are cases in point that success at one level does not guarantee success at the other. And frankly, the nagging question remained: did Harbaugh make Andrew Luck or did Luck make Harbaugh?

After leading his 49ers to a 13-3 record in his first season and a second round 36-32 win over the New Orleans Saints to boot, suffice it to say: Jim Harbaugh made Andrew Luck. And now he is making Alex Smith, a quarterback who had seen little NFL success before Harbaugh arrived on the scene. In the 2012 regular season, Smith completed 61-percent of his passes, threw 17 touchdown passes and only five interceptions. Compare that to his previous season: 60-percent completion rate, 14 touchdown passes, ten interceptions.

Harbaugh and Smith could not have done it against the Saints in any more exciting fashion. In one of the best playoff games in my memory, Smith threw a 14-yard laser to Vernon Davis, which he caught in between two defenders for the winning touchdown with nine seconds left in the game.

It has been pointed out multiple times that Tim Tebow is the sole and main ingredient that flipped a 1-4 team that hadn't been to the playoffs since the 2005-2006 season into a team that not only clinched a playoff spot but stunned the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first round, 29-23, in overtime. Tebow's role may or may not be overblown, but when the same variables are controlled in San Fransisco, Harbaugh is clearly the difference between a 6-10 team (in 2010) that hadn't been to the playoffs since 2003 and a team that is a game away from the Super Bowl.

There is something exciting about this 49ers turnaround for this guy who grew up idolizing Joe Montana, Steve Young, and Jerry Rice during the early 1990s. With Harbaugh at the helm, it is my guess that the current 49ers are "back," and will be for a while. Best of all, Harbaugh seems long gone from the college ranks, and he won't be torturing the Notre Dame fans again any time soon.