Sports

Niners’ bold QB change shows Super approach

Jim Harbaugh’s bold decision to stay with Colin Kaepernick and sit Alex Smith ultimately may blow up in his face.

No one can say he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions. You either trust his judgment or you don’t.

I will trust Harbaugh on this one.

He would not have made the bombshell move unless and until he felt Kaepernick — call him Special K — was ready.

And making it now gives the kid a chance to get his feet wet before the playoffs.

Remember this: Harbaugh hasn’t forgotten, all it would have taken was one big play from Smith to outlast Eli Manning and the Giants in the NFC Championship game.

And remember this: If he was truly sold on Smith, he wouldn’t have tried to woo Peyton Manning to the Bay area.

The offseason signing of WRs Mario Manningham and Randy Moss and drafting of A.J. Jenkins was designed to add explosiveness to the 49ers’ offense by surrounding Smith with more weapons.

Harbaugh certainly resurrected Smith’s floundering career, but oftentimes you cannot be great unless you dare to be great, and the thought of Smith going toe-to-toe with the likes of Manning, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees apparently scared Harbaugh to death. Even if he did outduel Brees in last year’s playoffs.

“I don’t think people realize he’s actually thrown more touchdowns than incompletions in his last two starts,” CBS analyst Rich Gannon said of Smith, who was a combined 25-for-27 with four TDs and no picks vs. the Cardinals and Rams in Weeks 8 and 10, respectively.

Harbaugh drafted Kaepernick in 2011 and has watched him every day at practice for a year-and-a-half, and Harbaugh decided the future was now.

With his rocket arm and racehorse legs, Kaepernick gives defensive coordinators more to fear than Smith. The last part of the equation was whether the game would be too big for him. It clearly has not been.

The 2000 Ravens beat the Giants in the Super Bowl when Brian Bullock switched from Tony Banks to Trent Dilfer midway through the regular season. Dilfer was the classic caretaker who rode the coattails of one of the NFL’s greatest defenses. Though Smith has developed into more than a game manager, as good as it is, the 49ers defense is not an historic one. Therefore, Harbaugh harbored reservations that Smith could get the Niners over the hump.

Bill Belichick had no reservations about Tom Brady giving the Patriots a better chance to win than Drew Bledsoe, the man he had replaced following that vicious hit by the Jets’ Mo Lewis, at the end of the 2001 season.

It was a different set of circumstances when Tom Coughlin benched Kurt Warner at a time when the 2004 Giants were 5-4 to start the Eli Manning Era. Coughlin sacrificed the present and a possible wild card playoff berth for the future.

A seismic gambit such as this also reveals the confidence Harbaugh has in himself, and his ability to develop a Super Bowl quarterback on the fly. And, of course, no coach without his kind of job security would even attempt to pull this off.

The issue, as always, is whether the locker room splinters should Kaepernick falter. Smith, voted a captain, is a popular, if not sympathetic figure, but there is no indication that the inmates run Harbaugh’s asylum.

“I just think this is a team that’s very driven and motivated,” Gannon said. “They’re not gonna let this be a distraction.”

Harbaugh opens up a can of worms if he is forced, for whatever reason, to go back to Smith.

“It’s not going to be an issue unless Kaepernick struggles and you have to go back to Alex Smith,” Gannon said.

Because Smith would not be able to afford a three-and-out, much less an interception.

“Now you’re looking over your shoulder,” Gannon said. “I went through it. It’s not easy. You lose your confidence.”

Harbaugh, in deference to Smith, declared him the starting quarterback on Monday, your basic politically correct poppycock. Everyone knew Smith, 19-5-1 under Harbaugh, had been Wally Pipped.

“I’d be [ticked] if I was Alex Smith,” Gannon said.

Smith was wounded. He wound up losing his job because he self-reported a concussion in Week 10 against the Rams.

“It [stinks], I don’t know what else to say,” he said

Harbaugh made it a point to tell Smith’s mother midway through last season that he was the toughest player he ever coached.

“He’s had shoulder injuries, taken some big hits, and he just keeps on playing,” Harbaugh told Sports Illustrated. “He went through some hideous treatment, not only thrown under the bus by the fan base but also by the team and the so-called experts who said some vile things about him. He’s stoic about it, and he doesn’t respond, doesn’t flinch. But he thinks about it because it hurt. Still, he forges on.”

Now he forges on as the backup starting quarterback. His day in the sun, his team, no more.

“I’ve talked to [Harbaugh] in the past about Kaepernick,” Gannon said. “My guess is that they look at this whole thing and say, ‘What do we need to do to win a championship?’”

The Giants have enjoyed success against dual threat quarterbacks Michael Vick, Cam Newton and Rodgers — Robert Griffin III, not so much. Smith has elusiveness, but Kaepernick is an entirely different animal — more like a cheetah with an atomic arm.

If and when the Giants meet the Niners in the playoffs again, Harbaugh is certain that when Jason Pierre-Paul & Co. come looking for Kaepernick, he won’t be there, and if he is, the ball will be long gone. And in Harbaugh World, so is better safe than sorry.

Still Super Bowl or bust. More now than ever.

steve.serby@nypost.com