Super Bowl LVIII is right around the corner, and although the NFL has yet to announce an expansion franchise here in the Mother Lode (hey, we can dream…), there is no dearth of Super Bowl storylines here in the foothills.

Meet the Mother Lode 49ers fans keeping fandom for the red and gold alive in Gold Country.

Sonora Wildcats head girls soccer coach Brandon Ludwig has a lot on his plate this weekend. Saturday night, his No. 1 seed Wildcats will play in the first round of the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division V playoffs.

Sunday, he’ll kick back and watch Super Bowl LVIII, featuring a showdown between his favorite childhood team, the San Francisco 49ers, and his one-time NFL home, the Kansas City Chiefs.

A standout football player at Sonora High school in the mid-1990s, Ludwig got a full-ride scholarship to play on the defensive line at the University of California, Berkeley.

He moved to the offensive line after a redshirt freshman year and fought for a starting job. He won it, and started the last two and a half years at Cal.

In 2002, Ludwig was signed to the Chiefs’ practice squad, where he played through the preseason before eventually being released.

“My very first preseason game was against the San Francisco 49ers in San Francisco,” Ludwig said. “That was kind of a big deal.”

He also had a workout with Niners, who later offered him a spot on their NFL Europe affiliate, but he decided he was done with the sport.

More than 20 years after his playing career ended, Ludwig will watch as the two teams with which he shares so much history clash on one of the biggest stages in sports.

Who will he root for? It’s the Niners, and quit asking.

“It’s funny, because everyone kind of thinks, ‘Oh, you must be rooting for the Chiefs,’ ” Ludwig said with a laugh. “It’s like, no! They cut me. Why would I root for them?”

Ludwig’s Niners fandom began as a young kid. His parents had season tickets and the family went to every game they could.

He got to experience a special moment in 1989 at the NFC Championship game between the Niners and the Los Angeles Rams, who were in their final playoff season before relocating to St. Louis.

“We were down sitting right by the rail before the game, and Tom Rathman came over. His gloves and his belt, he took them off and threw them to me,” Ludwig said. “He ended up playing the whole game with no gloves, because I had his gloves.”

San Francisco won, 30-13, and Ludwig’s dad, Bill, bought tickets for Super Bowl XXIV that same night.

The Ludwig family hopped a plane to New Orleans and managed to find a hotel which, coincidentally, was the carryover hotel for the Niners players.

One of Ludwig’s favorite memories wasn’t in the stadium, watching the Niners win the most lopsided game in Super Bowl history, but in that hotel, where Niners owner Eddie DeBartolo was hosting a party.

“I had to go to the bathroom, and the only bathroom we knew of was downstairs behind the party. We get in the elevator to go down, we get out and the guy says, ‘Do you guys have tickets? No? Then you have to leave,’ ” Ludwig said.

“We start leaving, and they are stamping hands as you walk out,” he continued. “My dad goes, ‘Get your hand stamped.’ We got our hands stamped, we turned around, walked right back in and were in Eddie DeBartolo’s party. Jerry Rice, Montana, all those guys walking by you. It was crazy.”

‘NinerClaus’ and other stories from a San Francisco’s superfan

If the San Francisco 49ers flag that flies outside Jeremy Peterson’s Oakdale home doesn’t give it away at first glance, you might have to venture upstairs to see the true extent of the former Tuolumne County resident’s Niners fandom.

“We have this extra room upstairs, and we are not having any more kids, so this room turned out to be my game room,” Peterson said. “I got to decorate it with memorabilia I have been collecting for years and years.”

Autographed jerseys and framed photos adorn the red walls of Peterson’s game room, with reclining chairs that face the three flat-screen TVs on the opposite wall. A Niners rug sits on the floor, practically reflected in the gold-painted ceiling.

“My game room is off the hook, man,” Peterson said. “It is legit.”

It is, in fact, off the hook.

Peterson spent his early childhood in Walnut Creek with his grandmother before moving to Tuolumne in fourth grade. He attended Summerville High School and later Columbia College, where he played basketball.

These days, he commutes back to Sonora for work as the owner of Mother Lode Yard Service.

“All my family and friends, everything that is dear to me is still in Sonora up there,” Peterson said.

Peterson is the quintessential Niners superfan. He has loved the Niners for as long as he can remember, and even owns a Niners jacket he got back in the fourth grade.

Coming up as an NFL fan while Joe Montana and Jerry Rice ran the league, Peterson said becoming a Niners fan was practically an inevitability.

“Joe Montana, man. Jerry Rice and Joe Montana,” Peterson said. “Being a California kid, you were either a Niners or Raiders (fan) … the culture there, the way they played, the way they won — how could you not love that franchise?”

One of Peterson’s more memorable fan experiences came in the last game ever played at Candlestick Park Dec. 23, 2013, where NaVorro Bowman’s famous “Pick at the Stick” closed the book on the stadium.

With the game falling three days before Christmas, he dressed up in a professional, velvet Santa Claus outfit, calling himself NinerClaus.

“I dressed up as NinerClaus, and ended up getting the camera crew of ESPN (to see me). They stopped right next to me, and Patrick Willis just got a huge sack on Matt Ryan, so the crowd went crazy. I started going crazy and the camera crew caught me in the moment,” Peterson said. “All my Niners friends back home saw me on TV, paused it, took pictures of their televisions with me on it … that was epic.”

Peterson’s game day superstitions are many.

The red and gold paint job came at the start of the year, as did a number of new additions to the room that he hoped would bring luck to the Niners 2023-24 season.

He will wear football sweats that look like game pants, his lucky team socks, turn on his Niners vending machine and, last but not least, light up his George Kittle candle, just to cover all his bases.

“I am a superstitious, energetic, very passionate sports nut,” Peterson admitted. “I got a Deebo Samuel autographed jersey, a (George) Kittle autographed frame, a (Christian) McCaffrey autographed frame and threw those up there because I wanted some current players to go into this season with.”

Peterson and his close friend Josh Walter, another Summerville High alum who now lives in Florida, met up in Pittsburgh for the team’s season opener.

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