A great first half followed by a horrible second half, led to Oklahoma State losing again. This time it was UCF taking advantage of the Cowboys second half foibles and winning 17-14 at the Acrisure Bounce House Saturday, in Orlando.

Oklahoma State is now 1-10 overall and 0-8 in the Big 12. UCF improved to 5-6 overall, 2-6 Big 12.

OSU played well in the first half. The Cowboys took an early lead when Zane Flores connected with Gavin Freeman on a five-yard touchdown pass, with 8:06 remaining in the first quarter.

The Cowboys extended their lead late in the second quarter as the team drove 77 yards on 12 plays, capped by a six-yard touchdown run by Flores, and OSU led 14-0 at halftime.

OSU dominated the time of possession in the first half; 19:36 to UCF’s 10:24. The Cowboys converted four of eight third-down attempts and ran 40 plays to UCF’s 23.

It was a different story in the second half as the Knights defense shut down the Cowboys. UCF had possession for 20:56 compared to OSU’s 8:56, plus the most glaring stat was the Knights outgained the Cowboys, 265-27 total yards in the second half.

The Knights scored on an 83-yard touchdown play on their first play of the second half. Tayven Jackson connected with Dylan Wade to spark the Knights comeback.

Jackson and Wade combined again in the fourth quarter on a two-yard touchdown pass to tie the game at 14-14 with 9:12 remaining.

The Knights closed out the scoring with a 34-yard field goal by Noe Ruelas with 52 seconds remaining to take the lead and the win.

UCF head coach Scott Frost admitted it wasn’t a pretty game but he was happy with how his team played in the second half.

“My challenge all week was, we got to play hard, and we got to play fast, and to some degree, there’s another gear in there that I don’t even know if our guys know they have,” Frost said. “So, to our guys’ credit, they came out and got a spark on the first play, and the defense played a great second half. I wish we could do that the whole game and just really grind down on somebody, but you can’t say anything bad about the way the defense played in the second half. And offense, despite a million mistakes, did just enough.”

Frost was asked about kicking the field goal late in the game to win.

“At the end of that game, I had confidence in two things,” he said. “One was our kicker, ‘cause he’s done an unbelievable job all year, and the other was our defense, the way they played the entire second half. We didn’t get aggressive in that situation, and our defense won it for us.”

Entering Saturday’s game, OSU had won 95 of its previous 97 games when holding its opponent to fewer than 20 points, dating back to Sept. 13, 2003.

One bit of a bright spot in the game for OSU was that the defense played well. Cornerback Cam Smith and LaDainian Fields each had an interception, and OSU won the turnover battle, 2-1. Plus, the OSU defense limited the Knights to 125 yards.

The Cowboys will host Iowa State at 11:00 a.m. Saturday in Boone Pickens Stadium.