Through week 16 of the NFL season, Carson Palmer and Mark Sanchez are the only quarterbacks who played at Orange County high schools to have thrown the required 14 passes per game to qualify for an official QB rating. Based on Matt Leinart's limited stats, were his passer ranking to count, it would fall in between those of his fellow Trojans. But the pride of Mater Dei has not seen enough action to officially qualify for that ranking, thus his lower place on the list that appears after the jump.
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The NFL gives Carson Palmer's brother and backup Jordan Palmer a 0 ranking because he has yet to take a snap in the regular season. That's actually better than Colt Brennan, who gets a “-” ranking due to being on the injured reserve list.
The QBs, their teams, the Orange County high schools they attended and their rankings:
Carson Palmer, Cincinnati Bengals (Santa Margarita): 86.3 season rating (15th in the NFL; Drew Brees' 109.6 leads the league)
Mark Sanchez, New York Jets (Mission Viejo): 63.2 season rating (28th in the NFL)
Matt Leinart, Arizona Cardinals (Mater Dei): 76.4 season ranking (does not qualify)
Jordan Palmer, Cincinnati Bengals (Mission Viejo): 0 season ranking
Colt Brennan, Washington Redskins (Mater Dei): “–” season ranking (injured reserve list)
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.