Was it really only a year ago at this time that the Niners had a lot of people in the football world actually believing they could be a bona fide dark horse in head coach Mike Nolan’s third season at the helm?

Twelve months later, coming off one of the darkest seasons in franchise history, the Niners have deservedly plummeted in the NFL power rankings, pinning their hopes for a resurgence primarily on the team’s sixth offensive coordinator in the last six years, none other than Mike Martz, the architect of the Rams’ once-potent “Greatest Show on Turf” offense.

The Niners’ 2007 season really started to go to hell when the fourth of those coordinators, Norv Turner, abruptly split the scene to become the new head coach of the San Diego Chargers.

With QB Alex Smith finishing strong in ’06, becoming the first quarterback in team history to take every snap, and RB Frank Gore coming off a most impressive breakthrough campaign, becoming the first Niners back ever to lead the NFC in rushing (and a team-leading 61 catches thrown in for good measure), there was genuine reason to believe Turner’s steadily improving run-first offense would continue going strong under the direction of able lieutenant Jim Hostler — even without a genuine deep-threat receiver on the roster.

Enter the gory details:

 Smith, who had been so durable the previous season, separated his throwing shoulder in Week Four and was eventually shut down, but not before his relationship with Nolan was shattered to pieces by the head coach’s insinuation that Smith wasn’t hurt badly enough to keep from playing.

 Gore’s season turned out to be equally tough to stomach. He broke his hand in training camp and had a nagging ankle injury that bothered him the entire season. Yet, more than anything, he was betrayed by an offensive line that mystifyingly fell apart, both against the run and the pass (NFL-high 55 sacks allowed, tied with the Chiefs).

 Hostler was in way over his head from the get-go, and his inflexible, unimaginative offense went on to score a league-low 219 points, leading to the Niners’ current leap of faith in Martz, who despite his flashy reputation as an offensive guru of the highest order, hardly set the world on fire in his previous stint as the coordinator of the Lions.

 And then there’s the team’s ownership. After creating a mostly positive buzz for aggressively scouring the free-agent market, obtaining the services of $80 million CB Nate Clements, among others, the York family is being recognized much more right now for its continued failure to put together an acceptable plan for a badly needed new stadium.

Do the Niners have what it takes to be anything more than an NFL also-ran in 2008?

At the very least, Martz will make things a lot more interesting. But while he will probably get more attention from the national media than anybody else connected with the team, it says here that the team’s “Smith boys” will be the two biggest keys — for better or worse.

Alex Smith and Justin Smith

“He (Smith) is doing things that I haven’t seen him do before, in practice or games,” said Nolan, who by all appearances, seems to have mended fences with the former No. 1 overall choice of the 2005 draft.

But what Smith must do is take all these new things that are getting thrown at him by Martz and make them second-nature, which is much easier said than done for a QB whose history suggests he isn’t totally comfortable until he masters every last detail of the system in which he is operating. Martz’s system will often require Smith to throw to different spots before his receivers get open, and it remains to be seen how truly at ease Smith becomes in those situations.

On the other side of the ball, the Niners’ fortunes are linked just as heavily to expensive free-agent newcomer Justin Smith, who was expected by most daily team observers to inherit the DRE job from the retiring Bryant Young.

So far this offseason, however, the ex-Bengal has spent more time on the field as the team’s rush (right) outside linebacker, the thought supposedly being that it will increase his effectiveness as a pass rusher.

The occasional use of Smith as a linebacker — shifting from the end spot and creating new looks on the fly in a defense that would love to effectively switch back and forth between a 3-4 scheme and a 4-3 this coming season — makes a lot of sense. But a decision to move him full time to outside linebacker opposite former first-round pick Manny Lawson seems extremely risky for two reasons: (1) Smith’s uncertainty as a pass defender in coverage situations and (2) the D-line’s uncertainty without him or two of last year’s starters, Young and Marques Douglas, who signed with the Buccaneers.

In any event, if Alex Smith can get his heretofore checkered career back on track in Martz’s fast-track offense and Justin Smith can somehow become the double-digit sacker this team so desperately needs at the moment, maybe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel after all.

Realistically, I see six wins on the horizon, at best.