A frustrating conclusion to the regular season came to an end for Kansas State, as they lost to the Iowa State Cyclones.

A loss in Ames means K-State lost three out of the last four games in a wide-open conference. Though the Wildcats were eliminated from the Big 12 before the start of this game, the Wildcats had a chance to spoil Iowa State's chances of making the conference championship game.

The story of K-State’s losses came into play on the first play of scrimmage. A pitch from Avery Johnson went behind Dylan Edwards, falling into a Cyclones player's hands.

As teams have done all season against the Wildcats, they took advantage of the short field and scored a quick touchdown. K-State was forced to punt on their next drive, but K-State’s defense stood strong and forced punts on the Cyclone's next two drives.

K-State’s biggest playmaker in the first half was Jayce Brown. After an interesting week where a report surfaced that he entered the transfer portal, Brown suited up on Saturday and kept K-State in this game. He had a 28-yard and 65-yard touchdown that resulted in K-State’s only points in the first half.

K-State allowed a season-high 24 points in the first half after a Keagan Johnson fumble and a turnover on downs led to ten points in the final minutes of the first half.

The defense found some success to start the second half, forcing two quick punts. The offense finally got something going at the end of the 3rd quarter, where they used a couple big plays to get them to the goal line. Johnson found Garrett Oakley in the back of the endzone on 3rd down to become 24-21 Cyclones.

Unfortunately, that was the closest K-State got in the second half. The Wildcats got the ball back down three, but a huge mistake by Johnson gave the Cyclones all the momentum. Iowa State brought the house on 3rd down, forcing him to scramble to the opposing end zone and throw it away. This resulted in a safety, giving the Cyclones a five-point lead. Iowa State would get the ball back and kicked a field goal, making it a 29-21 lead.

The Wildcats had two more opportunities to tie this game up, but they turned it over on downs twice. In fact, they didn’t gain one first down on either one of those drives.

Mistakes and turnovers were the story of this season and that showed in the regular season finale. K-State’s record finishes at 8-4 and they’ll await their bowl matchup in a few weeks.