As a former quarterback, Cameron Higgins is used to meeting things — or defenders — head on. Higgins was a standout player at both the prep and collegiate levels and within his first two seasons of coaching, his team won a state title. Now he'll face his newest task: head coach.

As first reported by ScoringLive Wednesday night, Higgins was selected as the next football coach at Kaiser. He had served as offensive coordinator under Rich Miano the past two seasons.

"I'm stoked," said the 26-year old Higgins when reached by phone Thursday. "I'm really thankful that Kaiser has that kind of trust and faith in me that I'm the guy for the job."

Despite having no prior experience as a head coach, Higgins believes that all of his time under center has helped to prepare him for his new role.

"I played quarterback pretty much my whole life and it didn't really feel that much different transferring over to the coaching side," said Higgins, who went on to play at Weber State University after graduating from Saint Louis in 2006. "For me, I was still in charge of the offense and you've got to lead your guys."

Higgins said he received congratulatory text messages Wednesday night before he got official word from school administration.

"It was funny because before I even knew I got 10 texts saying congrats and I'm like, 'What are you talking about?,'" said Higgins, who added that number has grown to over a 100 by the time we spoke.

Higgins replaces Rich Miano, who led Kaiser to both the OIA White and State Division II championships last season. It was just the second time the Cougars won a league title — the first since Miano played on the 1979 championship team.

"Coaching under Rich was awesome," Higgins said. "Just to see how he handles certain situations and how he ran the program was really a blessing to coach under Rich."

After Miano resigned early last month, Higgins made sure the team didn't skip a beat.

"We've been working with the kids, but a lot of them are playing different sports, so we've been working with some of the other guys in the classroom, on the board, on the field a little bit," Higgins said. "I just felt that it was my duty to do that. Going into coaching (two years ago), I thought that I'd do it for a couple of years and get on with my life, but you grow to love these kids and you see how much they grow and you can't help but really want to be a part of their lives."

Higgins said that while "most things will stay the same," he will tweak a few things for efficiency purposes.

"I think there needs to be a distinction between last year's team and this year's team," Higgins said. "We don't want to do everything the same. There's areas that we can improve upon. I think we can make use of our time a little better maybe in practices, but what will help is the players returning will have one year under their belts and the core coaching staff is pretty much the same."

A few assistants opted not to return, but Higgins did announce the hiring of former Kahuku and University of Hawaii safety/nickelback Richard Torres to his staff. Torres, who previously served as a graduate assistant at UH, will coach the defensive backs.

After winning the D2 state crown last season, Higgins will be leading the Cougars into the OIA Red (D1) in 2014.

"We know what it takes to win a state championship, granted it was in the White and the Red is totally different, but we definitely know how to work hard and prepare ourselves for the season," Higgins said. "I think they saw from last year what hard work does and hopefully what we've been doing in the offseason is really going to show in the season."