Hlas: Glorious Paulsens Era has begun for Hawkeyes

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The tale of Levi and Landan Paulsen at the University of Iowa got its first chapter Saturday. The potential it has to be storybook stuff is limitless.

Levi Paulsen, a second-year freshman, got his first career start in the Hawkeyes' 28-0 football win at Illinois Saturday, and seemed to play pretty well. He was the pulling guard on a beauty of a 10-yard run by LeShun Daniels that set up Daniels' 1-yard run for Iowa's first offensive touchdown, which also went behind Paulsen.

'It looked like Levi, from the sideline, did a really nice job,' Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said.

'It's pretty crazy,' Paulsen said. 'I played (Class) A football in the state of Iowa. Everyone asks me, 'You sure you're not 1A?' We were A football, the smallest 11-man football team you can be on. Coming to Division I, the biggest league of college football you can be in.'

He and twin brother Landan were twin towers of power at Woodbury Central High School in Moville, 14 miles east of Sioux City. That was where both were four-star offensive line recruits according to Scout.com.

Landan, Levi's twin brother was the Class 1A state wrestling runner-up at heavyweight as a junior. Levi was a state champ as a senior.

They're both 6-foot-5, 305-pounders. They wear glasses and have long hair and long beards. But they aren't the Hawkeyes' version of the Hanson brothers, the gregarious psychos who loved toys and violence and were Paul Newman's teammates in the great 'Slap Shot.'

No, these two are cut from a far better cloth. They were National Honor Society members in high school. They are musically inclined. Both played trombone solos for Woodbury Central in jazz band competitions.

The Paulsens joined several of their teammates in doing a routine with the Iowa Dance Team at halftime of a Hawkeyes game last winter. They brought a lot of enthusiasm and fun to the performance, and they were pretty graceful for their size.

Landan is an offensive lineman grinding his way up the Hawkeyes' depth chart. Levi had advanced to second-team right tackle, and was inserted at starting right guard last week after starting tackle Ike Boettger hurt an ankle against Michigan and missed the Illinois game.

If the twins ever become starters together, they could give Iowa's offensive line the kind of personality and fandom few Iowa O-lines have known. I suggested to Levi he and his brothers are potential folk heroes, and he wisely didn't think that required a serious response.

He sees himself as a football player, not a cultural icon-in-waiting. But he does expect to be united with Landan on the field during games at some point in their careers.

'You know what? I truly do,' he said. 'Ever since we were little we've always had twin competitions. ... He beats me in the weight room with Coach (Chris) Doyle every single day. He lifts a little more than me.

'But that's not stopping me. That gives me motivation to be one rep better on the football field. If I practice a little better than him, that really sets him off to have a better practice than me the next day.

'It's just a stairstep completion between the two of us. Hopefully, someday we'll be on the field together.'

Tell me this isn't the opening of a 2030 '30 For 30' on the Paulsens: When they were in first grade, they were entered in Iowa's AAU state Super PeeWee wrestling championship ...

'We were put in the same side of the bracket, a 32-man bracket,' Levi said, 'and my dad went to the head guy and was like 'Hey, we got these brothers here. You think you can put them on opposite sides of the brackets?'

The request was met, but you can guess the rest. The two won their way to the finals and still ended up battling each other.

'I beat him every single meet that year except that Super PeeWee state final,' Levi rued.

But rivals, they aren't.

'Me and my brother are best friends,' Levi said. 'We live together, hunt together, fish together, work out together, everything.'

They also look like, well, twins. Glasses, long hair, long beards.

'My mom really wants us to get haircuts and shave our beards,' Levi said. 'But you know what? She had said 'High school senior pictures, after that I don't care if you guys shave or get haircuts.' And since that day, we haven't shaved or gotten haircuts.'

The Paulsens have three years left at Iowa after this one. Oh, this could be great.