49ers Knock Cowboys Off High Horse : Pro football: After a week of talking up mismatch, Dallas falls apart in first quarter. San Francisco takes out Aikman, wins, 38-20.

The eyes of Texas blinked in disbelief Sunday as the pedestal beneath the powerful Dallas Cowboys was crushed by one of football’s natural phenomena.

Perhaps you remember the San Francisco 49ers.

Without a starting quarterback. Or starting fullback. Or starting guard. Or starting tackle.

One of the few things this bedraggled team carried with it into Texas Stadium was a motto, sprung from the weird mind of tackle Harris Barton last week in a huddle.

“Hey, let’s shock the world,” Barton said. “Shock the world.”

So done.

In one high-voltage afternoon, the 49ers rediscovered an important badge of honor and returned it to its rightful place with a stunning 38-20 victory over the NFC-best Cowboys.

That’s defending world champion 49ers. And don’t you forget it.

The Cowboys did, and were bloodied.

“To stand there and throw dirt on us before we were dead and buried was not right,” growled 49er linebacker Gary Plummer. “Everybody has spent all week basking in the glory of the demise of the 49ers. The statement we made today was, there is no demise.”

Or if there is, it is the demise of Cowboy Coach Barry Switzer, whose team once again appeared unprepared and undisciplined in an important game.

By the time they had taken five offensive snaps, the team that shared football’s best record had committed two turnovers and was trailing, 17-0.

Then the Cowboys lost Troy Aikman after he suffered a bruised left knee.

In a carbon copy of the Cowboys’ 38-28 defeat to the 49ers in last year’s NFC championship game--when they committed three turnovers and fell behind, 21-0, in the first quarter--Switzer’s team was finished in the first 20 minutes.

The Cowboys spent the remaining 40 minutes embarrassing the organization and themselves.

Once, Switzer forgot the rules, forcing a timeout and change of quarterbacks. Several other times, his defense forgot its formations.

Whenever the 49ers stalled early, one of the Cowboys would jump offside by five yards and allow them to resume their charge.

The 49ers knew it was over when Cowboy owner Jerry Jones left the press box and hurried down to the bench, where he talked to the players as if coaching them.

This was in the second quarter.

“Does he always do that so soon?” asked Carmen Policy, the 49ers’ president.

By the time the Cowboys formalized their surrender by kneeling on the game’s last play, they had allowed the most points by a Cowboy team in the seven years that Jones has owned the club.

“I’m gonna go have another drink,” Switzer said as he left the postgame news conference.

He paused, realizing his faux pas.

“A Pepsi,” he shouted.

Jones intercepted Switzer before he left the room.

“Barry,” shouted Jones, opening a side door. “In here!”

Jones didn’t fire him. But perhaps he mentioned that Jimmy Johnson won his last three games against the 49ers, including two for an NFC championship.

Switzer is 0-3 against them in his two-year career. The Cowboys have been outscored, 97-62, during that time while committing 12 turnovers and forcing only one.

Yes, it was all enough to silence even Deion Sanders.

“The Cowboys were the ones doing all the talking, saying they wanted revenge, saying we didn’t respect them,” said 49er tight end Brent Jones. “The Cowboys were the ones saying they would rock our world.”

Jones smiled. “Well, we’re the ones who have rocked them three straight times. They are the ones who better learn respect. Because we have their number.”

The Cowboys trudged around the locker room afterward as if they had seen a ghost.

With 49er quarterback Steve Young sidelined because of a sore shoulder, and fullback William Floyd out for the season after knee surgery, and a makeshift offensive line charged with protecting quarterback Elvis Grbac . . . the Cowboys were certain this would be a blowout.

Weren’t these the same 49ers who had lost to the expansion Carolina Panthers last week? And the New Orleans Saints the week before?

Switzer was so relaxed he even left the team on Saturday to watch his son play college football in Arkansas.

“Honestly, I didn’t think they would be that good,” said Cowboy safety Darren Woodson. “I thought we would beat them. Bad.”

Somebody was beaten bad, all right.

“I told George Seifert [the 49ers’ coach] that they didn’t need Steve Young,” Switzer said. “I told my team I could not understand how something like this happened.”

Fittingly for a team prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, the Cowboys were knocked out not after three strikes, but four.

Strike One: On the game’s second play, 49er receiver Jerry Rice lined up in the slot near the left tackle and cut across the middle of the field.

Eight yards past the line of scrimmage, he caught a pass from Grbac and ran untouched for 73 more yards for a touchdown.

Beaten on the play? Would you believe linebacker Darrin Smith?

Sanders, the cornerback who is paid $13 million this season to stop Rice, was inexplicably covering John Taylor on the outside.

Rice had four big catches in the first half, and finished with 161 yards, a career high against the Cowboys. But not one of his five catches was against Sanders, who did not cover him when he lined up inside.

Although Sanders wouldn’t admit it--”There wasn’t a problem with the scheme, it was the execution,” he said--it was obvious he did not agree with his role.

Strike Two: On the Cowboys’ first offensive play, Aikman was knocked down hard on his left knee by blitzing Marquez Pope while throwing a screen pass that fell short of Emmitt Smith. Remember this hit.

On the next play, Michael Irvin began his route by taking a swing at Pope. A second later, he caught a pass and headed upfield.

But then Pope returned the uppercut, landing a fist on the ball, knocking it loose and into the hands of Merton Hanks, who ran 38 yards for a touchdown. An extra point made it 14-0.

“The 49ers are a better team than we are,” Irvin said sharply. “I’ll repeat that for you. The 49ers are a better team than we are.”

Strike Three: Three plays after Hanks’ touchdown, Aikman threw a sideline pass to Irvin, which looked perfect until Rickey Jackson appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Aikman didn’t see him either.

Jackson intercepted the pass and, six plays later, the 49ers’ Jeff Wilkins had kicked a 26-yard field goal to give them a 17-0 lead.

Strike Four: With 6:39 remaining, Aikman was slammed to the turf by Dana Stubblefield. Aikman limped off the field.