During recent decades teacher education has experienced a digital revolution, where digital technology has become a ubiquitous part of the everyday life of both students and teacher educators. The purpose of this paper is to understand students' perceptions of the use of flipped learning (FL), with special focus on their motivation and learning in physical education teacher education (PETE). 22 Norwegian PETE students were recruited from one university in the academic year 2016/2017. The data were generated using semi-structured interviews, which were reduced, analysed, and interpreted by constructivist grounded theory traditions through learning theory lenses. The analysis resulted in five main empirical themes in terms of how students experience the use of FL in PETE. The themes were "expectations", "simple input", "deep learning", and "supportive learning environment". We also present some challenges that were reported. A clearly positive perception of FL in PETE was expressed by the students. FL seems to facilitate both better motivation and deep learning in PETE. In addition, students reported that experiencing FL in PETE lays a good foundation for them to use this approach in future service in school PE.