The 2024 Heisman Trophy will be awarded Saturday in New York City, today in Southern California, the 2002 winner of the prestigious award is the new head coach at Santa Margarita. 14-year NFL veteran Carson Palmer is the new coach of the Eagles, who are currently ranked No. 57 in the High School Football America 300 national rankings, powered by NFL Play Football.
This past season, Palmer helped the school’s freshman program as a volunteer coach. His son Fletch is a freshman QB at the school.
Palmer returns to the school where his quarterback skills gathered national attention. He graduated with 27 school records and back-to-back CIF Southern Section titles 1996 and 1997.
Below are Palmer’s high school stats from the football program’s website eaglesfootball.com:
| Year | G. | Att. | Comp. | Pct. | Yards | Long | TDs | Int. | Rating |
| 1995 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1996 | 13 | 218 | 125 | 57.3 | 2,084 | 79 | 24 | 6 | 168.4 |
| 1997 | 9 | 186 | 117 | 62.9 | 2,195 | 63 | 26 | 4 | 203.9 |
| Total | 23 | 405 | 242 | 60.6 | 4,279 | 79 | 50 | 10 | 183.4 |
After heading to USC, Palmer became the 2002 Heisman Trophy winner and the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 NFL Draft by the Cincinnati Bengals. He spent the first eight years of his career with the Bengals, where he ended 15-year playoff drought in 2005.
After a couple of years with the Oakland Raiders, Palmer closed-out his professional career with the Arizona Cardinals before retiring after the 2017 season.
Santa Margarita was 5-7 this past season, losing (31-29) in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinals to No. 5 St. John Bosco. The Eagles were 1-4 in the ultra-tough Trinity League, which year-in and year-out is considered the best high school football league in America.
Palmer takes over for Anthony Rouzier, who was put on administrative leave at the beginning of October.
