SANTA CLARA >> The 49ers’ camp theme in the new Jim Tomsula regime: Faster, faster, can you guys just go faster?

It’s palpable at practice; it’s impossible to miss when Tomsula plants himself right behind the 49ers’ offensive huddle and urges Colin Kaepernick to speed everything up.

Then does it again the next huddle. And then again, but louder. And then again. Even louder.

The practical part of this is that in his first training camp as head coach, Tomsula wants the 49ers offense working at a much quicker pace than it did in recent years.

And if Kaepernick can get out of the huddle and to the line in 10 seconds or less during these practices, it forces the 49ers defense to pick up the tempo, which raises the focus and energy of the entire practice.

“The sword’s getting sharpened on both sides,” Tomsula said of the two-way quest for increased tempo. “That’s the overall philosophy.”

In the first two days of practice — Saturday and Sunday — the first-team offense was regularly getting to the line of scrimmage with 28 to 32 seconds remaining on the 40-second play clock.

From what I saw, Kaepernick and the offense never once even threatened to run the clock down to zero, and at times the first-team defense was on its heels trying to match the pace.

Hard to argue with any of that, especially after the dawdling and delay of game penalties that messed up the 49ers’ offensive rhythm the past few seasons under Jim Harbaugh.

But there’s a symbolic point, too: Tomsula wants the team to play faster because his entire tenure is already in a virtual countdown.

If anybody understands the need to get things done quickly, without wasting time, it’s the man following in Harbaugh’s footsteps.

To put it bluntly: Everything Tomsula and the 49ers do from here on out will be judged swiftly, strenuously and mercilessly if things don’t go right immediately.

There’s no time for Tomsula and his staff to slow-play things; this isn’t about gauzy concepts like “team culture” or “building a foundation” or a “three-year plan.”

That’s not where the 49ers are right now realistically; they’ve endured a lot of personnel losses, but they still have talent, and they believe they’re good enough to beat anybody.

Tomsula isn’t an NFL philosopher, anyway. He’s not an X-and-O mastermind or a ranting disciplinarian. And he certainly isn’t a coaching superstar in the Harbaugh mode.

What Tomsula can be for the 49ers: The Fix-It Guy, and if he’s successful, they could win their share of games this season.

What’s there to fix? First, the mood of the entire franchise was sour last season during Jed York’s cold war against Harbaugh.

But that’s over now; Harbaugh is in Michigan and Tomsula got the job mainly because he’s York’s hand-picked selection.

At the very least, after the tensions and confusion of 2014, Tomsula’s hiring has soothed the emotions and calmed down the locker room.

“There’s a good buzz, I would say,” defensive lineman Ian Williams said. “Guys are just working. Guys aren’t really straying left or right or too far.

“Guys have a narrow path of just trying to go to work.”

Another Tomsula goal: Fix the team’s approach to playing at Levi’s Stadium after last season’s wobbly inaugural year.

Tomsula wanted to get a start on that by holding the 49ers’ first week of practices on the Levi’s field, but that was jeopardized by the huge divots that came up during the first practice on Saturday.

Tomsula decided to keep the team at Levi’s for Sunday afternoon’s practice; though the field got chewed up again, the team survived it.

One mini-crisis endured. There will be more. The clock will keep ticking.

Now, it’s still not certain that Tomsula, who coached the defensive line for Harbaugh, is the right guy to sharpen up the current 49ers roster.

We don’t know about Tomsula’s staff and we don’t know how Tomsula and everyone else will react once the regular season begins.

But we know that the players seem to genuinely like playing for Tomsula and we know that Tomsula has a pretty good idea about what needs fixing.

No. 1: Get the tempo up.

If Tomsula can simply accomplish that–if he and offensive coordinator Geep Chryst can get the plays to Kaepernick and get Kaepernick and the offense moving at a brisk pace, then Tomsula will have achieved at least one major thing.

It’s a simple, practical goal for Tomsula, who knows he already doesn’t have a lot of time or energy to waste.