AMES — Just two months before he was supposed to sign a national letter of intent to play football at Iowa State, Carson Lensing had to start from scratch.
In the second-to-last week of November 2015, former Cyclones coach Paul Rhoads was fired. Iowa State named Matt Campbell his replacement in a week and Lensing expected his scholarship to be honored, but there was a large degree of unknown.
Lensing knew he liked the school and its football program — he grew up loving Iowa State — but he needed to know more about the man who would be leading it.