LOS ANGELES — Mattias Hernandez’s route throughout the Pacific Palisades was simple. He’d drive north on Sunset Boulevard and turn right into the Marquez Knolls to pick up Ryland Junger. He’d come back along Sunset, stopping outside El Medio to swoop up Max Gayler. He’d continue on through the village and into the Huntington to grab Jack Crosby.
The four Palisades Charter High School football teammates and close friends would head to Benihana on 4th Street in Santa Monica for a meal.
To bond. To laugh. To watch Hibachi cooks flip shrimp tails into their hats and carve hearts out of fried rice. They took the experience for granted. Never thinking about if or when the tradition would end.
Until it did. Now they find themselves on opposite sides of Los Angeles, dispersed after the Palisades fire forced their families to relocate, as it did for most of the community.
The Jan. 7 blaze destroyed nearly 7,000 structures and left 12 dead. Much like a separate inferno that day in Altadena, it tore apart a town whose foundation was its people, where strangers acted like confidants, where kids could stroll to friends’ homes and knock on their door, where Hernandez could complete his carpool to dinner in mere minutes.
The Palisades fire burns near homes in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, 2025. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)Their friendships burgeoned when each was a member of Palisades High’s JV football team. They changed as the years passed. Junger stopped playing football. Hernandez moved away briefly. They never looked more different than the weeks after the fire, as each family sought a consistent roof, disregarding proximity to previous neighbors.
Even as they found stability, the loss of a community remained. Irreplaceable in its entirety. Present in moments, in places, in familiar faces.
Hernandez and Gayler rediscovered that feeling on the football field, where they saw their friends and teammates consistently. Where a shared mindset distracted from bonded trauma and led to an improbable undefeated regular season.
“The football team was always there for each other,” Hernandez said. “Football brings people close.”
Coping with the loss
In the weeks after the fire, it wasn’t that simple. Eleven Dolphins players had lost their homes. Everyone had something taken, whether it be a memory, their school, their field, the rhythm and routine of their life.
Hernandez returned to the Palisades to find his childhood reduced to rubble. When he saw his house was gone, he said, something shifted chemically. He realized, “genuinely nothing other than my life and the life of my family and my loved ones mattered.”
“I was debating if I could play football at this time in my life because of my confusion with everything,” he said.
Gayler felt a similar uncertainty. He was concerned with his family’s hospitality. For the first time in his life, he was on the receiving end of donations of clothes and food.
“It was very stressful,” he said, “I didn’t know what the future had in store.”
Enzo Allen, a junior linebacker at Palisades, lives in Beverly Hills. His home wasn’t impacted by the fire. He wasn’t at school the day it broke out, but he rushed back into the community to assist. Growing up in the Palisades and Brentwood school districts, he’d spend time in the village, at the Palisades Garden Cafe, CVS, all the popular after-school spots.
“I missed the community very much,” he said.
Rows of destroyed homes during the Palisades Fire in the Alphabet Streets neighborhood of Pacific Palisades on Jan. 9, 2025. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)Following the Palisades fire, concerns were limited to the well-being and safety of each affected individual and their family. Grief sped to the forefront. Football was an afterthought.
In fact, many kids changed schools, relocated to different cities or states, and were deprived of the choice to return to the sport they loved and the high school team they represented.
Palisades High varsity football coach Dylen Smith scrambled to retain players as coaches from rival schools tried to poach them with the idea that Palisades wouldn’t have a season. He gathered equipment and sought fields so kids could play catch and take their minds off the surrounding influxes.
Smith held hope that there would be a season, but he wasn’t fully confident until the spring months. Palisades progressed without a complete coaching staff. The Dolphins changed practice fields on a weekly basis. They played no true home games. They hosted a playoff game 20 miles from the Palisades.
On the field, the kids never complained about the effects of the fire. As logistical hardships stacked up, the players persevered. Their resiliency was littered throughout their journey, entrenched in their mission, their goal to go undefeated.
They overcame the absence of a home field and a thinned-out coaching staff. They achieved that goal because, to them, those obstacles were nothing in comparison to the blaze that wiped out their community and triggered all the difficulties of this year.
“I eliminated football as being hard because of what we had going on outside,” Hernandez, a senior tight end, said. “I realized, genuinely, football was not hard for me at this time. Everything outside of football was hard.”
That perspective lifted them throughout their season, which felt like a fairytale and ended like one, too.
“To be honest with you,” Smith said. “I did not expect to go undefeated. Not because of the talent, but because of everything that was going on. If we won one game, I would have taken that as a successful season.”
Healing through football
Smith had no expectations for the Dolphins’ record, let alone them holding the season. But after the fire, the coach wouldn’t let himself think of a Plan B, he said. He had grinded 23 years as an assistant, earning his first head-coaching job at Palisades three years ago.
This, he said, was his program. He didn’t want to go anywhere else.
For the sake of his job and his players, Smith forced himself to realize the season. There was, in fact, no certainty of that, but Smith remained confident.
“We had lost our whole weight room, sleds, equipment,” he said. “We were literally at zero.”
Palisades High varsity football coach Dylen Smith dealt with much adversity after the Jan. 7, 2025, fire left the team with fewer players, no equipment and no facilities where the Dolphins could practice or play. (Photo courtesy of Rich Schmitt)A team parent stepped up, working with Smith to create a video featuring the Dolphins’ seniors voicing their loyalty to the program. The Los Angeles Chargers answered his email, donating extra footballs, cones, weights and assistance.
As Smith searched for a field for spring practice, the players held gatherings at parks around the city. A consistent group of 10 to 15 showed up each time to play catch, connect, and disengage, even if for a moment, from their life outside of football.
Hernandez and Gayler were part of that group. After the fire, each questioned if he could play football. Their priorities had changed. Athletics was put on the back burner as they helped their families seek hospitality and begin healing. Once settled, they understood football was a crucial part of that healing process.
“It definitely helped me get my mind off a lot of the sad things,” Gayler said. “The community in that group just helped a lot because everyone’s there to uplift you, and they understand what you’re going through.”
Football offered a sense of familiarity — a first step toward rebuilding, reconnecting. Football became an escape. On the field, nobody judged a teammate for tardiness or lack of equipment. Not one kid complained about the fire impacting his play. If they had committed to the team, they were there to fight for a goal.
“It became this mission,” Hernandez said. “Let’s go 10-0.”
Nowhere to call home
The toughest part of the season, Hernandez said, was creating a routine because of the changing practice venues. He prides himself on giving teammates rides, but it became difficult when navigating different spots of L.A. traffic each week.
After months of uncertainty, the Dolphins landed a contract with Santa Monica’s Airport Park in time to hold their annual Friday Night Lights practice on the first Friday in May. They practiced 15 more times at Airport Park throughout the spring, developing consistency.
They were unable to return after summer break, migrating from field to field until agreeing to a six-week contract at UCLA’s Drake Stadium, lining up with the start of their regular season.
“We had a routine,” Smith said. “We knew where we were practicing. We knew where we’d be next week.”
That consistency helped Palisades launch a 6-0 start, but the contract at UCLA concluded three weeks before the playoffs started. So at a crucial time in Palisades’ season, the Dolphins dove back into the unknown. They switched practice fields daily. Palms Middle School. Del Mar Park. They returned briefly to Airport Park. They even trekked back into familiar territory, training for a few days at the Palisades Recreation Center.
Each change required adjustments from the kids. Those who opted for online school meandered through the city. Others who chose in-person classes, at the old Sears building in Santa Monica, hopped on a bus with an altered route each afternoon.
“It was kind of a nightmare,” Smith said.
As for where they played games, Smith clung to the idea that Palisades could open its season at its home field known as Stadium By The Sea. He wanted it to offer an occasion for a wide communal gathering, a “breath of fresh air” for the town, he said.
As with most things that year, it didn’t go as planned. Palisades opened its season at Santa Monica College, where it played a total of two “home” games. Every other game entailed hours-long bus rides to unfamiliar places, including being the home team for a playoff game at Los Angeles Southwest College on Imperial Highway, just a few miles from SoFi Stadium.
Despite the stress it added, Palisades embraced the caravaning mantra, enjoying the adventures to away games where it could beat the host in front of its fans.
An uncommon resiliency
That same mindset carried over to the field as the team handled the departures of key players and coaches. It had to patch together its staff and find a replacement at essentially every defensive position.
Throughout the spring, Palisades had more than 100 kids across its varsity and JV teams, yet only six coaches overseeing the operation.
Smith held office as the wide receivers coach and JV head coach on top of his normal duties as varsity head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Julian Love, Donte Dezeurn and Chayel Flowers handled different position groups on defense as they waited to learn who would take over as defensive coordinator.
Smith chose to promote Love, but the decision didn’t come until late August, so there was no time to install a new scheme. Not to mention, the Dolphins didn’t have the returning personnel to create a variety of looks, Love said. So he catered to their strength, which was speed, putting guys in space with the opportunity to make plays.
An unproven defense, players stepped up in clutch moments throughout the season, finding resolve in the midst of tragedy to make those timely plays and preserve the undefeated season.
“I think all the guys were just so dedicated,” said Gayler, a junior cornerback. “They had already gone through all this stuff. What’s the point of giving up now? So that was our mindset.”
The first time the defense found its back against the wall was Game 3 against Mary Star High. Palisades faced a two-score deficit at halftime. As its offense crawled back, the defense forced three turnovers on downs.
Mary Star had overpowered Palisades with its running game out of an 11-personnel look. Love adjusted, matching up across the formation, taking out one linebacker for a defensive back and another for a lineman.
To cause the first change of possession, linebacker Sean Flowers made a crucial tackle for loss. On the second, Augie Evans and Tavian Talbert read one of Mary Star’s go-to plays because they had prepared for it in a film session. Evans forced the quarterback out of the pocket and Talbert took him down. On the final stop, cornerback Harrison Carter made a crucial pass breakup.
“They had every excuse to lay down,” Love said. “But they said no. They came out with the mentality, ‘We can win this game. If we stay together.’”
They weren’t exactly on the same page a few weeks later during the rivalry game with Venice. Palisades was holding on 56-54 as Venice received the ball for a possible game-winning drive.
With the clock winding down, Venice dropped back to pass. Allen, the linebacker from Beverly Hills, guarded the running back who was on a wheel route and cornerback Jackson Kaufman covered a receiver who darted down the same sideline. Their tight defense forced an overthrow, and Venice’s receiver tipped the ball into Allen’s hands.
“It was an unmatched feeling,” Allen said. “It was my first interception. It was super special to do it with all my guys.”
The defense put everything together, and had to, in Palisades’ game against University High. The offense, which was dynamic all season, struggled like never before. Smith and senior quarterback Jack Thomas hadn’t had time to gameplan that week as the head coach dealt with an illness. The defense had their back.
With the Dolphins up 18-16 and University deep in Palisades territory, Love dialed up heavy pressure. Defensive end Adrian Romero burst off the snap. Defensive back Nico Townsend shed a block to get in the quarterback’s face. As the quarterback spun away from the pressure, blitzers Samuel Pizante and Skylar Walters sandwiched him, forcing the ball loose and into Romero’s hands to seal the game.
“When they needed to make a stop, they made a stop every single time,” Smith said about the defense. “Resilience. It doesn’t matter what we went through during the games, we had went through worse.”
‘A great escape’
The Dolphins’ unity as a team reflected their community. One that always felt comfortable and close. One where neighbors would share sugar and lemons. One where you could walk to the Sunday farmers market, often held at the high school, and count on seeing a friendly face.
The Dolphins mimicked Palisadian people with their resilient play, offering a modicum of joy in a broken world, earning the respect of the town and the support of a city.
The Chargers, one of many groups that pitched in, opened SoFi Stadium’s doors for the Dolphins’ Senior Night for their regular-season finale against Fairfax High on Oct. 30. The kids arrived early to soak in the experience. Allen, who wears No. 13, was drawn to Chargers wide receiver Keenan Allen’s locker. Same last name. Same number.
“I was like ‘Oh my god! What a perfect coincidence!” Allen said. “It was awesome.”
He took photos with one finger pointing to the name on the back of his jersey and another toward the locker above. The kids embraced every moment. The seniors walked through a line of their teammates, commemorating their careers in a memorable way, capping a 10-0 season with a 40-33 victory over Fairfax.
Palisades High players and coaches celebrate around head coach Dylen Smith, holding his Coach of the Week box, after their 40-33 victory over Fairfax High on Oct. 30 at SoFi Stadium. (Photo courtesy of Rich Schmitt)It was a celebration of the players, whose fortitude was never punctured by external circumstances.
“We resisted all the forces that were pulling us down,” Hernandez said. We got ourselves to practice every day, regardless of where it was. There were times where I genuinely felt like I had nothing in the tank. I was questioning everything I had ever experienced. Football was a great escape.”
After Palisades’ final game – a 42-21 loss to Garfield in the first round of the CIF Open Division City Section playoffs – Hernandez gathered his teammates, insisting that just because football was done, it didn’t mean their relationships would dissipate.
He suggested they plan another dinner, for old times’ sake. He started to think about it, logistically. He’s in the Robertson area now. Ryland Junger is in the South Bay. Max Gayler is in Beverly Hills. Jack Crosby moved to Hollywood.
“It just wouldn’t be the same,” Hernandez said.
But that’s the thing. Routes change.
Seniors head off to college. Juniors have another year. Eventually, everyone goes their separate way.
Friendships may look different, but whenever someone needs a shoulder to lean on, there’s no doubt it will be provided. Just like it was throughout the 2025 Palisades High football season.
Aaron Heisen is a freelance reporter for the Southern California News Group who grew up in Pacific Palisades and attended Palisades High. He and his parents, as well as his grandparents, lost their homes in the Jan. 7 fire.
Related Articles
LA wildfires didn’t lead to soaring Southern California rents A year after the Palisades fire, she’s stayed behind, because leaving would abandon her son’s spirit A year later, Malibu residents gather to mourn losses, look to a brighter future in fire’s wake A Palisades American Legion hall became a beacon after the fire. On anniversary, tears flowed there On anniversary, music echoes notes of hope for fire survivors — ‘the pulse and the heartbeat to the town’Hence then, the article about let s go 10 0 after the palisades fire this football team persevered was published today ( ) and is available on The Orange County Register ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( ‘Let’s go 10-0’: After the Palisades fire, this football team persevered )
Also on site :