{"id":203434,"date":"2026-03-24T03:54:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203434\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T03:54:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:54:22","slug":"ucf-knights-welcome-new-additions-to-football-coaching-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203434\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF Knights welcome new additions to football coaching staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

As UCF<\/a> gears up to kick off spring football camp next week, the Knights are becoming quite the team of Coopers.<\/p>\n

Coach Scott Frost<\/a> hired Cooper Bassett<\/a> as the new tight ends coach and also added Cooper Terpstra, a transfer offensive lineman from Michigan State. They\u2019ll be joining Steve Cooper, who is back as UCF\u2019s offensive coordinator.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve already got it worked out for the most part,\u201d Frost said with a laugh when asked about ways of differentiating each one.<\/p>\n

Bassett was one of several new coaches to join the staff this offseason after spending last season coaching tight ends at his alma mater, Oklahoma State. He takes over coaching the tight ends from Cooper.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt improves us in two ways: Coach Cooper was trying to coach tight ends and put the offense together alongside me. At times, I thought our tight end technique suffered because he was away. Other times, I think there was a lot on his plate,\u201d said Frost. \u201cI hope that it\u2019s going to allow me to spend more time with coach Cooper and make sure we\u2019re in the right stuff every week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bassett, 35, played four seasons with the Cowboys from 2009 through 2012 before moving into coaching with stops at\u00a0Sam Houston State, Southeast Missouri, West Texas A&M and OSU.<\/p>\n

\u201cCooper Bassett has done a really good job working hand in hand with [new offensive line coach] AJ [Blazek] to make sure our tight ends and offensive line are on the same page and use the same techniques, particularly in the run game,\u201d added Frost.<\/p>\n

Blazek<\/a> takes over for Shawn Clark, who passed away unexpectedly last September. The former Iowa Hawkeyes center coached at Rutgers, Iowa, North Dakota State, and, most recently, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

\u201cAJ was a pretty easy choice,\u201d Frost said of the hire. \u201cI played against the University of Iowa and coached against the University of Iowa enough to know how good a job they do with their offensive line. I love how they teach it, and it\u2019s a little different. So, I wanted somebody from that tree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frost hired Will Johnson to be the Knights\u2019 new defensive backs coach following the departure of Brandon Harris in the offseason. However, Johnson\u2019s time with the program was short-lived as he left to join the Minnesota Vikings\u2019 coaching staff last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good thing about that is [defensive coordinator] coach [Alex] Grinch handles the safeties, so we\u2019ve just got to find a corners coach,\u201d said Frost. \u201cRealistically, we\u2019ve already got our defensive install mostly done going into spring ball, so I wanted to take my time a little bit and make sure we get the right guy, particularly with kind of a veteran group of corners that we have.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to find somebody who can add to it just a little bit. So we\u2019re taking our time, but I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll get that position filled soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please find me on X, Bluesky or Instagram @osmattmurschel. Email: mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com<\/a>. Sign up for the Sentinel\u2019s Knights Weekly<\/a> newsletter for a roundup of all our UCF coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As UCF gears up to kick off spring football camp next week, the Knights are becoming quite the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111,28,114,1335,139,141,140,76046,110,3865],"class_list":["post-203434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-college-sports","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social-sports","tag-sports","tag-ucf-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}