Carson Palmer enjoyed a decorated career as a high school and college quarterback before embarking on an NFL career that spanned 14 seasons.
Now the former Heisman Trophy winner is taking over one of the top ranked high school programs in the country.
Palmer has accepted the head coaching job at Santa Margarita HS (CA).
This past season, Palmer helped the school's freshman program as perhaps the most overqualified volunteer coach in the country while his son, Fletch, was a freshman quarterback for the program.
At Santa Margarita, Palmer takes over the program he starred for before committing to USC. As one of the top quarterbacks in the country, Palmer threw 50 touchdowns to just 10 interceptions as a starter in 1996 and 1997, setting nearly 30 school records and winning back-to-back CIF Southern Sections titles.
He would go on to be one of the top quarterbacks of the past several decades while at USC, winning the Heisman in 2002.
In the 2023 NFL Draft, Palmer was the number 1 overall pick by the Bengals, where he spent eight seasons, leading them to break a 15-year playoff drought after just his second year in the league.
He would go on to spend a few seasons with the Oakland Raiders before closing out his NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals, eventually retiring after the 2017 season.
While Santa Margarita finished a disappointing 5-7 this past year, they put head coach Anthony Rouzier on administrative leave back in the beginning of October and compete in the ultra-competitive Trinity League, widely considered the best high school football league in the country.
Palmer takes over a program that is ranked 57th in the High School Football America 300 national rankings, who lost a tight 31-29 game in the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinals to powerhouse St. John Bosco.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.