CHANDLER, Ariz. — Kennedy Urlacher wants to show his dad the highlights. And there were many last fall for the three-star safety who picked up his first offer in eighth grade, years before believing he was good enough to play college football.
Notre Dame and Miami have offered since. So have nearby Arizona and Arizona State, plus Stanford, Iowa and Washington. So yes, there was plenty for the 6-foot, 195-pound athlete to watch with his father, Brian Urlacher, the first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer.
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Yet, there’s also much to learn. And it’s not just the high school junior getting the education.
Beyond watching the hits that proved to Urlacher he was good enough to play in college, the father and son will talk through the plays that get the former Chicago Bears star’s attention on Friday nights. Sometimes that’s Kennedy taking an angle Brian didn’t understand live. Sometimes it’s Brian asking about the play design, applying his middle linebacker perspective to a safety’s responsibilities.
“I don’t know what the call is sitting on my butt in the bleachers. I can speculate. But maybe he sees something I don’t see,” Brian said. “I’m open. I like having the discussions with him. I’m a fan and I’m his dad. That’s my role. I’m not there to coach him.
“We do talk a lot of shop at home, and he finally thinks I know something now, which is nice.”
So goes the father-son dynamic for Brian and Kennedy Urlacher. The junior prospect will visit Notre Dame, Miami and Kansas in the next month, but his last name didn’t earn him those scholarships. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman was a teammate of Brian Urlacher’s for a season in Chicago and the two had kept in touch, but that’s not why Notre Dame offered Kennedy as the Irish hunt versatile speed at the back of the defense.
Kennedy Urlacher’s last name might have opened some doors — the eighth-grade offer came from New Mexico, Brian’s alma mater — but it’s been Kennedy’s responsibly to walk through them. Or maybe even kick them down. In other words, when Freeman traveled to Arizona on a recruiting trip in January to offer Urlacher a scholarship, catching up with his former teammate was just a fringe benefit.
“I don’t like living in the footprints of somebody else,” Kennedy said. “I’d rather make my own footsteps. You’d have to figure it out on (your) own who my dad is. I don’t go out of my way to say, ‘Oh, my dad is …’ I don’t do that.”
Brian Urlacher was an eight-time Pro Bowl selection. (Jonathan Daniel / Allsport / Getty Images)When Urlacher plays in seven-on-seven tournaments, opponents don’t know who he is until his own teammates call him out. Last September after a Power 5 school offered, a Rivals reporter covering that program tweeted “Brian Urlacher’s son can play.” Chandler safeties coach Brian Underwood quote tweeted the message with: “You mean Kennedy Urlacher.”
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Kennedy liked the tweet and got back to work.
He’s been comfortable taking the path of most resistance even when a smoother course was available. Kennedy relocated to Arizona to live with his dad in middle school, back when he liked football but was still learning to love it. He enrolled at Casteel High, about 20 minutes from the family home, and started at cornerback as a freshman. His season was good enough to trigger an offer from Arizona. It wasn’t good enough to convince Kennedy Urlacher he was a legit prospect.
“Honestly, I was all right as a freshman. But I wasn’t a crazy player. I was just all right,” Kennedy said. “I was still kind of questioning it right then.”
But he wanted answers after that freshman season — so much so that he took a risk to get them. Transferring high schools in Arizona is common, even with a five-game sit-out penalty the next season. That meant Urlacher would leave a starting job at Casteel for the guarantee of riding the bench the first five games of his sophomore year and no promise of playing after that. He just knew Chandler High was a higher level of football and had five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola, before his move to Pinnacle this winter.
“I told him we could stay at Casteel for four years and start, or you could transfer and maybe not play. They might have kids better than you,” Brian said. “There was never a doubt in his mind. He likes the challenge of trying to play with the big boys.”
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Kennedy didn’t play much as a sophomore, save for special teams and at the end of blowouts, as Chandler followed back-to-back undefeated seasons with a run to the open division semifinals. It’s not that he questioned the decision or even wondered why he wasn’t playing more. He just knew the matter wasn’t settled.
That moment arrived on opening week last season against Cathedral Catholic in San Diego when Urlacher filled a run gap from free safety against an inside run play. He hit the running back high and put him on his back. At that moment, all the recruiting offers and attention were validated. A fumble return touchdown later helped.
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“He has a knack for being around the ball. And when he’s around the ball, usually unfortunate things happen to the other guy,” said Chandler head coach Rick Garretson. “Maybe that’s just a trait from his family, man. Dad wasn’t bad. He’s got those instincts as well.
“He’s kind of a hybrid kid. He can play from free safety; he can play some strong safety. Does he move up as he gets older, kind of like his pops did? There’s always that possibility. He’s not close to being a full-grown man. He’s still a kid. You can see his ceiling and how he’s nowhere near it.”
Urlacher played free safety last season and will shift to more of a strong safety with some middle linebacker responsibilities as a senior. Garretson said it’s a similar defense to what Brian Urlacher ran at New Mexico. As for the recruiting parallels between father and son, there are none.
“I took one recruiting trip, and (New Mexico) said, ‘We’d like to offer you a scholarship. If you don’t accept, we’ll give it to somebody else,’” Brian said. “Well, I’d love to take it. That’s how my recruitment went.”
The younger Urlacher will make his first real recruiting visit to Miami next week while on spring break in Naples. A visit to Kansas will follow next month to see his older sister, who’s a student in Lawrence. Then comes Notre Dame in mid-April with his dad and uncle. One of Brian’s friends, a Notre Dame non-football alumnus, plans to tag along. The Urlachers have never visited Notre Dame, but a career in Chicago meant Brian met plenty of people tied to the university.
“That offer was exciting for me because I know what Notre Dame means,” Brian said. “The networking you get from going to school at Notre Dame is amazing. Football speaks for itself. It’s an amazing place to be.”
Kennedy isn’t quite sure what he wants to see in South Bend. He just knows Notre Dame is recruiting him the hardest of any program. He said safeties coach Chris O’Leary, defensive coordinator Al Golden and recruiting director Chad Bowden are in contact with him “every day,” and Freeman is in contact at least twice a week. He said Freeman was the only head coach to visit Chandler to put eyes on him during the winter contact period.
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“(Freeman visiting) was crazy. I would say the offer was unexpected, but having a head coach come down to see you specifically, I mean, you should kind of expect it,” Urlacher said. “I’ve never had a school do anything like that, sending a head coach and position coach just to tell me they’re offering.”
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It’s not clear where Urlacher’s recruitment will go from here, only that it’s gaining momentum. As much as Kennedy Urlacher’s last name might make it seem like this was all preordained, it’s easy to talk to the junior and forget the family part of his background. That’s probably just as well, considering what gets Kennedy Urlacher into a college football program won’t have anything to do with his father’s NFL background.
“He doesn’t want anything because of his last name, I’ll tell you that much,” Brian said. “This dude has a chip on his shoulder because people give him s—: ‘The only reason you’re getting an offer is because of your dad. You’re only playing because of your dad.’ He wants to prove to everyone that’s not why. And he’s good enough.
“I won’t say he’d been spoon fed, because he hasn’t. Everything that he has, he’s worked for.”
(Top photo: Pete Sampson / The Athletic)
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