With a 20-13 loss to Iowa State on Saturday at Boone Pickens Stadium, a horrible season for the Oklahoma State Cowboys has come to an end. Oklahoma State finishes with a record of 1-11 overall, 0-9 in the Big 12. The Cyclones are 8-4 overall and 5-4 in the Big 12 and are headed to a bowl game.

“For this group to never waver, never flinch and actually just keep getting better through it is incredible,” said Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell. “What a great testament to their belief and their ability to stay the course. They’ve given themselves a chance to do what very few teams here at Iowa State have done, and they got a chance to do something that only five teams in the history of the school have done because of their ability to stay the course and not waver. I’m really proud of it; it’s really what I feel like our program has always stood for and to be able to see it come to life with this team was really awesome.”

The scoring in the game for OSU came off an eight-yard touchdown run by Trent Howland, and a pair of field goals by Logan Ward from 28 and 41 yards.

Howland’s touchdown came late in the second quarter, after OSU punted three times and lost a fumble on their first four possessions of the game.

“Man, it was exciting,” Howland said about scoring the touchdown. “I had the fumble early on in the game, obviously, but I forgot about it and knew that I needed to go out and finish this thing. I deserved to give it to them (the fans), but also myself. When they called the counter, I knew it was going in the end zone, and as soon as I saw everything open up, I just leapt in there. That put a big smile on my face.”

For Iowa State, Rocco Becht threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to Chase Sowell, Abu Sama ran for a 40-yard touchdown, and Kyle Konrardy kicked field goals of 45 and 34 yards.

The Cyclones’ defense held Oklahoma State to only 229 yards of total offense and forced two turnovers.

“I feel like we were in control the whole game,” Campbell said. “We had a couple of those young pups at tight end have a couple of critical penalties that ended up negating some big plays. But I thought Rocco (Becht) was in great rhythm, I thought he played really good football today. I thought we were physical from the get-go, we ran the ball how we wanted to run the ball. (Oklahoma State) threw everything at us — you had six defensive linemen, eight d-linemen, five d-linemen. It was a lot. And a couple of times, we shot ourselves in the foot with some penalties, so we’ll have to clean those things up going forward.”

For the Cowboys, Flores completed 23-of-34 passes for 202 yards and one interception. Howland finished with a net of 37 yards on 14 carries.

For Iowa State, Becht finished with 9-of-19 pass completions for 113 yards and one touchdown. Carson Hansen led the running backs with 24 carries for 109 yards. Sama ran for 87 yards on 12 carries and one touchdown.

The Cyclones had 344 yards of total offense.

“I think defensively, we played well enough to win the game,” said OSU interim head coach Doug Meacham. “They punted six times, that’s pretty good. Offensively, we had spurts of really good stuff, but we had two turnovers. We’ve got to be able to punch it in the end zone when we get to the red area. Unfortunately, one of those two turnovers might have been the difference in the game. Hopefully, the guys coming back will learn some lessons from this year, I know I certainly have and I wish everyone luck.”

NEW OSU HEAD COACH

On Tuesday, Oklahoma State announced the hiring of North Texas’ Eric Morris as its new head football coach. Morris is still coaching at North Texas through the end of the season, and his team is contending for a conference championship and College Football Playoff berth. The Mean Green are No. 21 in the AP Top 25.

“Coach Morris has a good staff coming in here, a bunch of good guys,” said Meacham. “I respect him immensely. I love what he does on offense, and I know they improved a lot on defense this year as well. I think they did a great job picking Eric Morris. He’s an old Texas Tech guy, an air raid guy. I look forward to what they do here, and I wish him all the best.”

Previous head coach Mike Gundy was fired in September during his 21st season, and Doug Meacham was 0-9 as the interim coach, the remainder of the season.