{"id":387827,"date":"2026-09-02T02:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T02:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/387827\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T02:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T02:56:17","slug":"ucf-players-coaches-share-favorite-bounce-house-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/387827\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF players, coaches share favorite Bounce House memories"},"content":{"rendered":"

It doesn\u2019t take visiting teams long to realize why UCF<\/a>\u2019s stadium is called the Bounce House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember walking through the (visiting) tunnel and everybody\u2019s just bouncing up and down, and I\u2019m like, \u2018I might get hit,\u2019\u201d former UCF longsnapper Dalton Riggs said, recalling his first visit as a member of the BYU team.<\/p>\n

Talk about home-field advantage: when fans begin jumping up and down, the whole 45,000-seat stadium can shake, rattle and roll, sometimes to the shock and dismay of visiting teams and their fans.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a part of UCF\u2019s football history since the venue broke ground in 2006.<\/p>\n

And while it\u2019s had its fair share of names, including the current Acrisure Bounce House Stadium<\/a>, plenty of memories have been made along the way.<\/p>\n

Sean Beckton Sr.<\/a> has been a part of the UCF football program, first as a standout wide receiver from 1987-90 and then as an assistant coach, including serving as the Knights\u2019 receivers coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been telling everybody one of the top ones always is when we opened it up against Texas (2007),\u201d said Beckton. \u201cSome of my favorites have been the South Florida rivalry. Yeah, obviously the \u2018out and up\u2019 to (Breshard) Perriman to win the (2013) game; the Mike Hughes touchdown to win the (2017) game. You can\u2019t forget the Memphis game and then the championship (in 2017).\u201d<\/p>\n

Beckton points to the fans\u2019 proximity to the field as one benefit of the Bounce House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of teams from the opposing side call back and say, \u2018Man, I didn\u2019t realize that place was that loud when it got in a situation where they really needed to be loud or the excitement of it.\u2019 You really don\u2019t know about it because we experience it all the time and have been around it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Quarterbacks coach McKenzie Milton<\/a> created a treasure trove of memories during his time at UCF; many of those came in the Bounce House. Milton was the starting quarterback under coach Scott Frost<\/a> for three seasons, helping guide the program to back-to-back American Athletic Conference Championships and consecutive appearances in New Year\u2019s Six bowl games.<\/p>\n

He was in charge of the offense in 2017 when the Knights put together a program-best 13-0 record, capped off by defeating Auburn in the Peach Bowl.<\/p>\n

Some of his favorites include the 2017 USF game, a back-and-forth affair that was highlighted by Hughes\u2019 95-yard kickoff return with 1:28 left that lifted the Knights to a 49-42 comeback win.<\/p>\n

Milton also points to the 2018 Cincinnati game as one of his favorites.<\/p>\n

It began with ESPN\u2019s College GameDay making its first visit to campus and ended with UCF pulling off a 38-13 upset win over the ranked Bearcats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t there for it, but the (American Athletic) conference championship after I got hurt (in 2018),\u201d said Milton. \u201cSeeing it on TV like that was pretty neat. It was a full-circle moment for me, and the culture that got established here was there years ago. Those were my top three moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Frost, it\u2019s the AAC Championship Game against Memphis in 2017 that still resonates with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was special to me, even though there were some weird circumstances around it,\u201d Frost said of the 62-55 double-overtime win.\u00a0\u201cAccepting the conference championship trophy on this field after my last game here, the first time around, it was just such a special group of guys and when you put in a lot of hard work, sometimes that leads to special things, and sometimes it doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s worth it anyway because this is more about the process and the journey than it is the destination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of guys that know that and appreciate what we did in 2017, but when you do go through that journey, there\u2019s something special at the end, I think that makes it even more meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former running back Adrian Killins (2016-19) remembers the impact the fans had on the 2018 Cincinnati win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe atmosphere was so electric. Cincinnati got the ball first and they jumped offsides twice, and home field advantage worked for us,\u201d Killins said during the UCF Kickoff Luncheon.<\/p>\n

Safety Demari Henderson has experienced more than his fair share of games at the Bounce House. The Seminole High School product is entering his fifth and final season with the Knights.<\/p>\n

Some of his favorites include the Knights\u2019 45-3 upset win over then-No. 15 Oklahoma State on Nov. 11, 2023. It was UCF\u2019s annual Space Game in the program\u2019s first season in the Big 12.<\/p>\n

A game-by-game look at the UCF Knights football schedule<\/a><\/p>\n

His other favorite moment was scooping up a fumble and returning it 15 yards for a touchdown against Baylor five games earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody asks what you\u2019re gonna do when you get into the end zone. When you get there, everything goes blank, and the crowd goes crazy. My teammates were jumping on me. It was such a good feeling,\u201d recalled Henderson.<\/p>\n

Safety Braeden Marshall, a Lake Mary product, says his favorite game was also the win over Oklahoma State.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the game that we had and the atmosphere playing at the time,\u201d said Marshall, who is appearing in his fourth season with the Knights. \u201cOklahoma State had great players like (running back) Ollie Gordon at the time. It was a great feeling to come out on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defensive tackles coach Kenny Martin has been a part of UCF\u2019s coaching staff since 2021, when he was first brought on board by new coach Gus Malzahn. Martin recalls first experiencing the Bounce House during the Knights\u2019 season opener against Boise State.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was our first game. Everybody told me how it kind of caves in on you as you run out of the tunnel and usually coaches don\u2019t run out of the tunnel. So I was like, \u2018Man, I\u2019ve got to experience this.\u2019 So I came out of the tunnel with the team and I was like, \u2018This is crazy. The Bounce House really bounces.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Please find me on X, Bluesky or Instagram at @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":"It doesn\u2019t take visiting teams long to realize why UCF\u2019s stadium is called the Bounce House. \u201cI remember…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111,28,114,1335,139,141,140,109,76046,110,3865],"class_list":["post-387827","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","tag-social-sports","tag-sports","tag-ucf-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387827","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=387827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}