ORLANDO — UCF crashed back down to Earth while celebrating its 10 th annual Space Game, wasting the momentum of upsetting second-ranked BYU with a humbling loss to a Baylor team that fired its head coach five days earlier.

Florida transfer DJ Lagway threw for 319 yards and four touchdowns, and Baylor (5-3, 3-2 Big 12) delivered a dominant defensive performance for interim coach Joe Klanderman in his debut with a 41-9 blowout at the Acrisure Bounce House.

Klanderman, previously the Bears' defensive coordinator, assumed head coaching responsibilities for the remainder of the season when Baylor parted ways with Dave Aranda on Oct. 25. The Bears lost their previous two games, including a first defeat to Kansas in 14 head-to-head contests dating back to 2007.

"People don't need to be congratulating me. I'm not the one that did anything; they're the ones that did it," Klanderman said. "I'm speechless with how these guys came out. I knew that they were galvanized. I knew they had a lot of love for each other, and I figured they were going to come out and play with passion and energy. But we played well, too. It was really fun to watch these guys."

Keyone Jenkins, making his sixth straight start for the Knights (4-4, 2-3), exited early in the third quarter after reaggravating an ankle injury, head coach Scott Frost said. He could not follow up last week's heroics, in which he picked up a pair of national honors, limited to 14-of-21 passing for 82 yards and an interception.

UCF gained 66 yards on the ground — 50 of which came from third-string signal-caller Rocco Marriott on the game's final drive.

"That's the best front-seven that I've seen, that we've played," Frost said. "We got whipped tonight.

"I know the narrative's going to be that we weren't ready to play. I take that. I don't know how I could have messaged it anymore or more often to the guys."

UCF will have an extra day to regroup before attempting to snap its 12-game losing streak on the road. The Knights visit Kansas on Nov. 7, with kickoff time and television details still to be announced.

Here are three takeaways from a horrific outing on the eve of Halloween.

Baylor continues Big 12 dominance against UCF

With less than four minutes to play in its 2023 Big 12 home opener, UCF held a 35-7 lead against a seemingly beleaguered Baylor. From that moment on, the Bears have utterly dominated the head-to-head series.

That day, Blake Shapen led the largest comeback in school history as Baylor scored 29 unanswered points. Last year, the Bears brushed off back-to-back losses and temporarily eased pressure on Aranda with a 30-3 blowout in Waco, Texas — the first game in a decade in which UCF failed to score a touchdown.

A similar script unfolded Friday despite the coaching change.

Baylor battered the Knights in the trenches, harassing Jenkins and Barnett on seemingly every dropback while collecting seven sacks and 12 tackles for loss. The Bears led the Big 12, and ranked in the top-five nationally, in both categories entering the weekend.

Lagway, meanwhile, shredded UCF's secondary in his best performance of the fall. The junior hit on four of his five deep throws (15 yards or more downfield), including a 77-yard strike to Gavin Freeman to essentially settle the outcome in the third quarter. He connected twice for touchdowns with former Gators teammate Tony Livingston and added a fourth when he found Matthew Klopfenstein all alone from the 4-yard line.

"College football is a weird game. Them guys are on scholarship, too," defensive tackle Horace Lockett said. "They just made more plays than us, so we've got to get better."

Since the aforementioned four-score UCF lead, Baylor has outscored the Knights 100-12 across nine-plus quarters.

Alonza Barnett III returns after 5-game absence

Listed as a game-time decision for the second straight week, Barnett was thrust into action on UCF's second drive after halftime. Jenkins required help off the field from the training staff and checked into the medical tent, taking a hit around the ankles while releasing a screen pass to Duke Watson.

Brought in as the Knights' starter after leading James Madison to the College Football Playoff and earning Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year honors, Barnett missed the previous five games with a hamstring injury sustained in the final minutes of a Sept. 12 loss to Pittsburgh.

Klanderman tested Barnett's mobility immediately by sending a blitz on his second snap, and Bo Onu came free to wrangle him for a sack. Baylor forced Barnett into six straight incompletions at one stretch, including a pair of fourth-down failures.

Barnett, however, did provide the longest play of the evening with a 68-yard completion to Josh Derry. The drive stalled inside the Bears' 10 when Devin Turner sacked the redshirt senior for an 8-yard loss, resulting in a meaningless field goal.

"I thought he did some good things, made some good throws," Frost said. "Whoever was playing quarterback, it's going to be hard if we don't block better and create a running game. I mean, we couldn't get anything going in the first half."

Will Stone kicks longest field goal in UCF history

On the final play of a dismal first half, Will Stone made UCF history.

The redshirt senior kicker launched a 57-yard field goal through the uprights, sending the Knights into the break down 20-6. Largely used as a kickoff specialist during a four-year tenure at Texas, Stone' previous career-long make was 40 yards — last month against Georgia State.

Eddie O'Brien set the previous record of 55 yards during the 1985 season — when the Knights played in the NCAA's Division II — to give UCF its first head-to-head win over Bethune-Cookman. Colton Boomer matched it in a 2023 victory at Boise State, a game in which he also hit a 40-yard winner as time expired.

Stone learned of the accomplishment near the end of the fourth quarter, he said following the game.

"It felt great, I'm not going to lie," Stone said. "It's a really cool accomplishment, but I'm not making that if it's not for my snapper, my holder and those other 10 guys blocking for me. They did a really good job today of holding a really good pocket. Kyle (Hicks), the snapper, he was money all day. Holder hit the spot every time. Those guys did 99% of the job."