Palm Springs High School has won a pair of CIF Southern Section football titles, and the Indians have reached the championship game five times in its storied history.
At the end of 2025, Palm Springs was just two wins shy of adding a third championship to its trophy case.
The Indians were one of three Coachella Valley teams to reach a CIF-SS semifinal last season. That many area teams reaching the semis in one season was unprecedented for the valley. Palm Springs fell, 28-7, to Barstow, while Palm Desert lost to Beckman and Coachella Valley ended its season with s 49-42 loss to Grace.
Rancho Mirage soccer went 16-2 and outscored opponents 88-14 for the season. La Quinta baseball rolled through the DEL with a 14-1 record. These teams, along with the three gridiron semifinalists, could all make a case as the top boys’ team of the 2025-26 school year.
While there wasn’t one obvious choice for the best boys’ team in the valley last season, as there was with the girls, we landed on the Palm Springs football team as The Desert Sun’s boys’ Team of the Year.
Here are a few of the reasons:
The Indians completed a 9-1 regular season, which included a 5-0 run through the non-league slate. The only loss coming against Palm Desert. The 35-28 road loss did come without star running back Jordan Johnson with whom they were undefeated. The Indians shared the Desert Empire League title with the Aztecs who had lost to Xavier Prep earlier in the season.
Then, without Johnson, who ran for 793 yards and 10 touchdowns in six games, Palm Springs navigated a run to the CIF-SS semifinals in Division 7, the toughest division of the desert semifinalists.
“It was a really good season,” Indians head coach Darryl Goree said. “I was really happy for the boys. They really worked hard last year, and it paid off.”
The Indians led the DEL with 32.3 points per game, and they were 5-1 in games decided by seven or fewer points.
But without a doubt, the most impressive thing about the season for the Indians was the epic turnaround. Palm Springs went just 3-7 overall and 0-5 in the DEL in 2024. It’s rare that we ever see a one-year flip like we did with the Indians last season, but they stuck together after that rough season and came out champions on the other side.
Johnson and fellow star Koa Rapolla and teammate Davelle Johnson have since joined the football team at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. Jordan Johnson will redshirt, Goree said, to continue rehabilitating the injured knee that ended his senior season at Palm Springs.
Now, Kaylaun Smith, a sophomore who goes by Tank, will lead the Indians into 2026. We’ll see what the new season has in store, but the 2025 team will be right up there with the standard at Palm Springs.
“We didn’t reach our ultimate goal,” Rapolla said at the end of the season, “but we’re proud of what we accomplished and have no regrets.”
You voted and you chose …
We gave you six talented boys’ teams from the previous school year to choose from in an online poll and your choice for Boys’ Team of the Year was the Rancho Mirage boys’ soccer team.
The Rattlers are an excellent choice. They captured the Desert Empire League title with a 9-1 record and did so in lopsided fashion. They outscored their opponents 50-8 in league play or an average of five goals per game to less than one. With Jerome Carter leading the way in the scoring department, the Rattlers finished the year 16-2 which included a spot in the highly competitive Division 1 playoffs, where they won their first playoff game.
Andrew John covers sports for The Desert Sun and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at andrew.john@desertsun.com. Find him on Instagram: @desertwriter.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs High football is our 2025-26 boys’ Team of the Year
Reporting by Andrew John, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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By Andrew John, Palm Springs Desert Sun | USA TODAY Network
