Feel the Teal Again: Kyle McFadden Has Canyon Springs Winning With Patience, Development and Belief

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. — Some rebuilds happen fast. Others are built one year, one class and one standard at a time.

At Canyon Springs, head coach Kyle McFadden’s work is beginning to look like the second kind — the kind that takes patience before the results become impossible to ignore.

Canyon Springs athletics and the program’s own football website currently list McFadden as the Cougars’ head varsity coach for 2026. The school’s athletics podcast introduced him as the new football coach in 2021, giving him time to build the program through multiple classes of players.

THE YEARS THAT BUILT THE BREAKTHROUGH

The first few seasons under McFadden were not defined by easy success. Canyon Springs finished 4-6 in 2021, 4-6 in 2022 and 4-6 again in 2023.

It would have been easy to judge the program only by those records. But high school football programs are often built beneath the surface before the wins arrive — in the weight room, in offseason attendance, in younger levels learning the system and in coaches staying committed long enough for the culture to take hold.

Then 2024 arrived, and the numbers changed dramatically.

Canyon Springs went 9-3 overall and 4-1 in Inland Valley League play. The Cougars scored at a high rate, finished near the top of their division and returned to postseason football. It was the kind of season that turns a developing program into one opponents have to prepare for seriously.

2025 PROVED IT WASN’T A FLUKE

The next year mattered just as much as the breakthrough year.

Canyon Springs followed the 9-3 season with an 8-2 record in 2025. The Cougars won their first six games, built one of the strongest records in the city and finished the year with a roster that produced across the field.

Across 2024 and 2025, Canyon Springs won 17 games. That is a significant change for a program that had been fighting through four-win seasons only a few years earlier.

The 2025 offense featured a 1,000-yard-level rushing presence in senior Andre Larry, while quarterback Angel Robles completed nearly 59 percent of his passes with a 102.3 quarterback rating. The Cougars also had multiple athletes contributing on both sides of the ball, reflecting the depth and versatility the program has been developing.

DEVELOPING THE COACH, TOO

One of the underrated signs of a serious program is when the head coach continues investing in his own development.

In 2025, McFadden was selected to participate in the Los Angeles Rams’ High School Coaches Shadow Program, an opportunity that placed him around NFL-level football operations and coaching environments. Experiences like that matter because they give high school coaches access to new ideas, practice structures, leadership methods and ways to bring professional standards back to their own programs.

For Canyon Springs players, that means their head coach is not asking them to improve while standing still himself.

A STAFF AND SYSTEM TAKING ROOT

Canyon Springs’ current 2026 staff listing shows a deep group of assistants working alongside McFadden, including Pete Garza, Ramon Parra, Keylon Andrews, Ted Virgil, James Parson, Donta Abrams, Joseph Murray, Jay Gomez, Joshua Taylor, Dustin Love, Edgar Ugalde and Jacorey Mitchell, among others.

That kind of staff depth matters in high school football. Programs become sustainable when position groups are taught consistently, younger players are developed, and responsibility is shared across coaches instead of resting on one person.

The Cougars’ JV team also finished 7-2 in 2025, another encouraging sign that winning habits are reaching beyond only the varsity roster.

WHY CANYON SPRINGS MATTERS TO MORENO VALLEY FOOTBALL

Canyon Springs has one of the longest football traditions in Moreno Valley. That history matters, but history alone does not win games for the current generation.

What matters now is that current players can look at the last two seasons and see evidence that the Cougars are once again capable of producing winning football.

McFadden deserves credit for staying with the process long enough for that evidence to appear. The early records did not change the commitment. The program kept building. The players kept developing. And eventually the wins followed.

2026: FROM PROVING TO EXPECTING

Canyon Springs enters 2026 in a different position than it did when McFadden first took over.

The Cougars open Aug. 21 at St. Anthony, then host Fallbrook on Aug. 27 and Patriot on Sept. 4. They will do so with a program that has won 17 games over the last two seasons and with expectations that are now higher because of what the team has already shown it can do.

That is one of the biggest compliments a coach can earn: the standard becomes harder because the program has become better.

Kyle McFadden and Canyon Springs are no longer simply trying to build something respectable.

They are trying to sustain something that is already winning.

And after 17 victories in two seasons, Moreno Valley should be paying attention to the teal again.

Valley Life 247 Sports will follow Coach Kyle McFadden and Canyon Springs throughout the 2026 season as part of our independent high school football coverage of Moreno Valley and the Inland Empire.

Reporting sources reviewed for this feature: Canyon Springs Athletics, Canyon Springs Football, MaxPreps and public Los Angeles Rams high-school coaching coverage current through August 12, 2026.