It’s Time to Let the Record Speak: 49ers’ Mariucci Is 11-1

As you know, I’m the last guy to say, “I told you so,” and really in all humility, does it matter who was right or wrong in assessing Steve Mariucci’s prospects for coaching success in San Francisco?

Mr. Mariucci has won 11 of 12 games, and while some know-it-all naysayers might still insist in reporting that his team has yet to beat an opponent with a winning record--not one good team in all those 11 lucky wins--the fact is, Mr. Mariucci is a

real winner. With one exception, his team has beaten every team it was asked to play.

“As far as I’m concerned, he would be the coach of the year,” said Mike Shanahan, Denver’s really good coach, who has won 23 of his last 28 regular-season games. “He’s been able to come into a situation where the standards are very high, where they expect nothing less than an NFC championship and a Super Bowl win.

“And when you have that kind of pressure, and what with some of the setbacks they had early on with Jerry Rice and Steve Young, to keep that together, that really says a lot about him.”

Anyone who watched him coach at California, of course, could have seen that, the way he bounced back after losing to Navy to get a promotion and replace George Seifert, the coach with the winningest percentage in NFL history.

Someone else might have begged for more experience than one year as a head coach at the collegiate level, or asked if the 49ers had dialed the right number. Mr. Mariucci had no doubts, moved into the office once occupied by Bill Walsh and Seifert, and while probably not calling on the advice of Bill Parcells or Mike Ditka, told his players to start calling him “Mooch.”

“I’ve known Steve since he was a quarterback at Northern Michigan and he won a national championship,” Shanahan said. “I always knew he would be a head coach because he was bright from the very start and could relate to people so well, and his success doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Some people I know, and know very well, however, wrote very disparaging remarks about Mr. Mariucci before the season, suggesting that he was in over his head in taking control of the 49ers, and would require baby-sitting by Walsh and Seifert.

But Walsh, 102-63-1 in 10 years with San Francisco, and Seifert, 108-35 in eight years, have been nowhere in sight, and while shocking, remarkable, unbelievable and beyond expectations, the 49ers have looked as well-coached as ever against the likes of the Saints, Falcons and Rams.

“Bill and George are there--even though they really aren’t there,” explained Shanahan. “Remember, all the assistant coaches that are there worked for both Bill and George and there’s some great knowledge there. One of the reasons they’ve been able to remain successful is because they have kept all those assistant coaches, and they never compromise that, whether they were to bring in Steve Mariucci, Mike Shanahan or George Seifert. They are running the same organization all the time, and that’s why they remain on top.”

Great organization or not, it would certainly be tough to find anything wrong with a coach in charge of an 11-1 team, but you know some people--they’ll keep trying--and so it has been suggested that Mr. Mariucci is just along for the ride, the veteran players really running the team.

“I remember Bill Walsh, George Seifert always talking about how on the great teams the players always take over,” said San Francisco quarterback Young. “And this coach basically said that’s how I’m going to coach.”

You can just hear some wiseacre now: “Maybe he should have let the players at Cal take over when they played Navy.”

Not Shanahan, an offensive coordinator for three years with San Francisco who had been picked by the 49ers’ brass to replace Seifert upon his retirement, only to get itchy and leave for Denver after the 49ers had won Super Bowl XXIX.

“Most smart football coaches would do that, would let veteran players take over,” Shanahan said. “I think it takes a sharp guy to let them play and take advantage of their experience.”

Maybe that’s what the 49ers saw in him, a sharp guy willing to ride the Hall of Fame coattails of Young, Rice and the NFL’s No. 1 defense without getting in the way. The 49ers were 12-4 last season, and how much coaching did they really need?

Of course, the brass was not happy not winning a Super Bowl. They approached Mr. Mariucci about becoming offensive coordinator with an added incentive, promising him that he would replace Seifert in a year or two.

But Seifert, proud and successful, had no intention of being phased out, and walked away, accepting more than $1 million not to coach anywhere else in 1997. As for 1998, he will be the most sought-after coaching candidate in the NFL, but by then, the 49ers hope to have pictures posted of Mr. Mariucci holding the Lombardi Trophy high above his head.

“He seemed the perfect fit for the 49ers,” said linebacker Gary Plummer with a hint of sarcasm. “He’s young, good-looking and Italian. Fortunately for us, he’s more substance than style.”

But he lost to Tampa Bay to start the season, an offensive-minded coach who was in charge of a 49er team failing to score a touchdown for the first time in 97 games.

Not the kind of guy to point fingers, I can tell you there were critics out there actually dismissing Mr. Mariucci as a lightweight.

“He stood tall through that little session,” Young said. “And that’s where a lot of guys said, ‘Wow, we’ll follow this guy.’ Up to that point, it was like, ‘Well, we don’t know.’ ”

“That little session!” One week into serious work, the 49ers lost Rice because of a knee injury and Young was dazed on the sideline with yet another concussion, requiring Mr. Mariucci to open his second NFL game with rookie quarterback Jim Druckenmiller.

“In some respects that might have made it easier on him because the expectations were not as high,” Plummer said. “We all said, ‘We’ll see if his energy, enthusiasm and optimism last.’ And you know what? To his credit he hasn’t wavered.”

In St. Louis, the second game of his NFL career, Mariucci not only won with Druckenmiller in the lineup, but did so with a flourish, benching offensive line leader, Kevin Gogan, for being penalized because of a late hit in the first half. Until then, he had been known as the rah-rah college coach, who kept telling everyone just to have fun.

“I needed to do something without letting things unravel,” said Mr. Mariucci, his entire team watching how he would react to Gogan’s bonehead play. “I needed to make a statement.”

He not only benched Gogan, but at the start of the second half after Gogan asked to go back in, he said, no. “You cooled down, but I didn’t,” Mr. Mariucci told Gogan, and suddenly everyone knew who was boss.

And like Seifert, who took Walsh’s team to a Super Bowl victory in his first year on the job, Mr. Mariucci is well on his way to taking Seifert’s team all the way.

Twelve weeks into his first year on the job, Mr. Mariucci is also the first rookie coach in NFL history to win 11 games in a row, a guy who still has a newspaper clipping pinned to his wall, which reads: “The 49ers have flipped out. They have put a guy in charge who couldn’t even beat Navy.”

How wrong can the critics be: Mr. Mariucci has not only silenced them, but following in the great footsteps of Barry Switzer, who went 8-1 in his first year on the job, Mr. Mariucci is probably Super Bowl-bound at some point. And shoot, who am I to suggest anything else?

Some day he might even be as good as Switzer and win a Super Bowl.

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Stretch Drive

How Super Bowl champions fared in last five regular-season games:

* 1996: PACKERS went 5-0

* 1995: COWBOYS went 2-3

* 1994: 49ERS went 4-1

* 1993: COWBOYS went 5-0

* 1992: COWBOYS went 4-1

* 1991: REDSKINS went 3-2

* 1990: GIANTS went 3-2

Source: World Features Syndicate