SANTA CLARA, Calif. — It took 44 minutes at the San Francisco 49ers’ press conference to introduce new coach Jim Tomsula for general manager Trent Baalke to mention Jim Harbaugh’s name.

Suffice it to say, if all it takes is three-quarters of one game for Baalke to start talking about his former coach next season, the Tomsula era will be off to a very rocky start.

The 46-year-old Tomsula, a defensive line coach the past eight seasons, was formally announced as the 19th head coach in 49ers history Thursday in a press conference where unity was the theme and dodging bullets was the focus.

“This was an exhausting process,” Baalke said of the search for a replacement for Harbaugh, who won 49 games in four seasons as 49ers coach before accepting ownership’s offer to go forward in different directions.

“We set out looking for the right pedigree, looking for the right leader, looking for the right teacher, looking for the right motivator,” Baalke continued. “It’s hard when you’re interviewing to find individuals that check all of the boxes. A lot of guys that we talked to, you could check a lot of those boxes.

“But I kept coming back to Jim Tomsula, because all of those boxes that were talked about, he checked.”

So instead of possibly bringing Mike Shanahan back to the San Francisco Bay Area, or maybe giving Adam Gase his first head-coaching gig, it is Tomsula who gets the opportunity to be a full-roster boss for the first time since he was with the Rhein Fire of NFL Europe in 2006.

“I understand that my journey is an unusual one,” said Tomsula, who joined the 49ers’ organization under Mike Nolan in 2007. “I’m used to not normal, and I’m comfortable with not normal.”

Not normal would aptly describe an organization escorting its highly regarded coach out the door after three trips to the NFC Championship Game — and one berth in the Super Bowl — in a four-year stretch.

Tomsula, a former NCAA Division II player at Catawba College, assured on Day 1 he fully understands the bar is set high at $1.2 billion Levi’s Stadium, with or without Harbaugh.

“I get it. I get the decision these men just made,” Tomsula said while flanked by Baalke and team CEO Jed York. “I understand the responsibility. I clearly understand the expectations on and off the field.”

After also dismissing all of Harbaugh’s staff other than Geep Chryst (quarterbacks), Tom Rathman (running backs) and, of course, Tomsula, Baalke was pressed on what make the 49ers a better team today than during an era that also featured popular defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who was passed over in the head-coaching search.

“(We are) very confident that what (Tomsula) brings to the table will galvanize this football team and allow us to take the next step,” Baalke boasted, choosing not to mention a Super Bowl championship by name.

Asked a wide-ranging variety of questions from his feeling about replacing Harbaugh to who he is considering for his staff to what type of defense he plans to run, Tomsula demonstrated no interest in answering any of them.

His silence spoke volumes: If Harbaugh wanted to be spokesman for the team, Tomsula doesn’t.

“It’s the same structure that it’s been going back,” assured York, noting Tomsula, like Harbaugh, will report to Baalke, who in turn will report to the CEO.

One sequence of the press conference demonstrated the new Harbaugh-less chain of command.

While Tomsula was dancing around a question about his offensive philosophy, Baalke interrupted to say, “I think in there he said we’re going to run the football.”

Baalke made it clear he will play a role in determining Tomsula’s coaching staff. The names of former Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski and current Oakland Raiders defensive coordinator Jason Tarver already surfaced.

Known as a “players’ coach” by 49ers who dealt with him on a daily basis, Tomsula went out of his way to credit the players, rather than Harbaugh, for the team’s turnaround from 6-10 under Mike Singletary (and Tomsula for one game as interim coach) in 2010 to 13-3 in Harbaugh’s first season.

“We were off. There was a lockout,” Tomsula recalled of the beginning of the 2011 season. “Our players were getting together themselves. They took ownership. There was a bonding that was happening. Every week, more people would come. It morphed.

“In training camp, yeah, there were some X’s and O’s. But the overlying factor (in the team’s eventual success) was that while other teams were all over the country (during the lockout), our team wasn’t like that.”

Nose tackle Ian Williams noted that Tomsula’s favorite term among the defensive linemen is bludgeon. He expects that kind of mentality to spread quickly among the full team.

“He knows each person,” Williams cited as Tomsula’s strength as a coach. “He knows how to push and pull you. We’re excited about keeping somebody in house.”

Tomsula used his nose tackle rotation last season as an example of why he can be a successful head coach in the NFL when few before him made a successful transition from defensive line coach to the boss.

He is a people person, he insisted, not a position person.

“I used Ian Williams and Glenn Dorsey and Quinton Dial this year playing the nose guard position. Three completely different body types. Three completely different players,” Tomsula noted. “I coach all three different to achieve the same job.

“We’re always trying to enhance what they do, what they do best, and then bring up the areas that are lacking. We’re trying to make you better. (Then) you go, ‘All these guys play different, but we get the desired result.'”

Like Williams, fullback Bruce Miller is thrilled to see Tomsula get a chance.

“I’m really excited,” Miller said. “Coach Tomsula is the first person I interacted with at the combine in 2011. When I left, I was like: ‘Holy cow. I want to play for that guy.’

“Coach Tomsula brings a very aggressive mentality. I look forward to that.”