Colin Kaepernick hands the ball off to Frank Gore. (Getty Images)
(
)
NEW ORLEANS — The wheels began turning in practice on a day when moving the ball was not possible.
“We couldn’t gain a yard against our defense, so we called it up,’’ 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman said.
What Roman called was a zone-read option run and Colin Kaepernick took it 80 yards.
“So, we saw it in practice during a competitive scrimmage situation,’’ Roman said.
More evidence was needed, so on an August night this past summer, Kaepernick, vying for the backup quarterback spot behind Alex Smith, kept the ball out of the shotgun and raced 78 yards for a touchdown in a preseason game against the Vikings.
“It was just a great example of the explosiveness that Colin has,’’ Roman recalled. “It’s something that I always kind of felt we had in our back pocket.’’
Kaepernick is no longer in anyone’s back pocket. He’s the ascendant star quarterback at the helm of the most diverse offensive system in the NFL, and because he has come so far so fast, the 49ers are in Super Bowl XLVII, ready to unleash their not-so-secret but highly dangerous weapon against the Ravens.
Just as Kaepernick is difficult to grasp, so too is the 49ers offense tough to define. Coach Jim Harbaugh says Roman has “done a job that is revolutionary in football.’’ That might be hyperbole, but there’s no doubt this is cutting edge stuff, made possible by a rare athletic specimen as the triggerman.
Who would have thought that Roman, a guy from Ventnor, N.J., would be the mastermind of such a creative attack? It is a misnomer to say the 49ers are a read-option offense that operates out of the Pistol formation that Kaepernick perfected at Nevada. It is not accurate to suggest the Niners rely on Kaepernick’s running ability to jump-start the operation. In a 45-31 playoff victory over the Packers, Kaepernick ran for 181 yards — the most for any quarterback in NFL history — and the very next week, Roman called only one designed run for Kaepernick as the 49ers came back to beat the Falcons in the NFC title game.
“That’s a perfect example,’’ left tackle Joe Staley said. “You prepare to stop one thing. We knew after that game Atlanta was going to really gear it up to stop Colin and make sure he didn’t use his legs to win it. He’s a great passer as well and he was able to beat ’em with his arm. One of those deals [where] you pick your poison a little bit.’’
The Ravens have never faced Kaepernick and there is no telling what Roman has up his sleeve. The 49ers can run the power game with Frank Gore but can also utilize Gore as part of the option attack, which puts an enormous amount of decision-making pressure on a second-year quarterback about to make only his 10th NFL start.
The run threat can be overwhelming because Kaepernick is 6-foot-4, 230 pounds, runs with the long strides of a gazelle and has blinding speed.
“It freezes them a little bit. It gives you a little bit more time,’’ Kaepernick said of the option. “If it’s just a split second, that’s an advantage for the offense.”
No one watching the 49ers in action should be ashamed to reveal they sometimes cannot follow the ball because they themselves often don’t know who has it.
“Not a clue,’’ Staley said. “I’m out there running around like a chicken with my head cut off just playing football. I’m being serious, I have no idea sometimes where the ball is. There’s sometimes I think the ball will be going behind myself and I had a key block and I hear the crowd go crazy and I’ll look up thinking I broke my butt for a touchdown and the ball’s on the other side of field and Colin has it and he’s pitched it like seven times to like eight different people.’’
At times, Roman seems to be toying with opposing defenses. He says, “We felt like we could win our division and whatnot the traditional way,’’ so he removed the Pistol formation for several games.
“We kept practicing it and just felt like it was something we could spring on whoever we played in the playoffs,’’ Roman said. “We tried to make everybody forget about it and think that we had scrapped it leading into the playoffs.”
paul.schwartz@nypost.com