Kennedy Urlacher — son of Chicago Bears legend — signs with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Notre Dame’s roster for the upcoming season has plenty of NFL pedigree, and the Irish just signed another prospect with an impressive bloodline.
Chandler (Ariz.) High safety Kennedy Urlacher is the son of Chicago Bears legend and Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Brian Urlacher. On May 1, Urlacher picked Notre Dame over Miami, TCU, Kansas, Kansas State, Washington, Stanford and Penn State. He put pen to paper on the morning of National Signing Day.
Urlacher picked up an offer from Notre Dame on Jan. 23 and quickly set up a campus visit for the weekend of April 15. The 6-1, 180-pounder loved his experience in South Bend and a couple of weeks afterward, announced a top-six schools list of Illinois, Kansas State, Miami, Notre Dame, Penn State and TCU with the spring commitment date.
“The relationship with the coaches, and I really like what they said about how you can play big-time football at most of the schools I have an offer from, but you can’t get the network that Notre Dame has,” Urlacher told Blue & Gold when asked why he picked the Irish.
The elder Urlacher was an eight-time Pro Bowler, the 2005 NFL Defensive Player of the Year and someone who is generally regarded as one of the best linebackers to have ever stepped on the gridiron.
Interestingly enough, Urlacher was even teammates with now Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman in Chicago for a short time. Freeman was selected by the Bears in the fifth round of the 2009 NFL Draft but was waived that September. The following May, Freeman unfortunately retired due to an enlarged heart condition.
“I remember training camp and OTAs with Marcus, and he was the perfect rookie because he didn’t talk,” Brian Urlacher told Blue & Gold over the summer. “He was very quiet, came to work and went about his business every day. As a veteran guy, that’s what you want to see. He was very professional.”
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Freeman and Urlacher reconnected a few years ago through a mutual acquaintance and spoke earlier this year when Notre Dame started to recruit Kennedy. The elder Urlacher was happy about his son’s decision, considering his past with Freeman and his feelings about the Irish football program.
“My view of Notre Dame might have been different than Kennedy’s because when I grew up, Notre Dame was badass,” he said. “That was the school you wanted to go to. They were on TV every weekend, which every school is now, but back then it wasn’t like that. Jerome Bettis — they had all the guys. That was the team I watched growing up.
“Beyond that, it’s the education. Football is great, but I didn’t fully understand the network and the educational part of what that comes with Notre Dame. I have a couple of buddies from Chicago who attended Notre Dame, and they speak so highly of it and the network of people you meet there as well.”
According to the 2024 On3 Industry Ranking — a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting services — Urlacher is the No. 700 overall prospect and No. 72 safety in America. He’s also the No. 14 player from the state of Arizona.
