During Sunday’s thrilling win over the Cincinnati Bengals, Bears Head Coach Ben Johnson dug into his bag of tricks early in the opening drive and called a unique play for starting tight end, Cole Kmet. It featured Kmet in the wildcat position, taking the snap and pitching it to quarterback Caleb Williams, who then threw it back to Kmet.
Cole Kmet (No. 9) also played defensive end in high school.
The Barrington native and Saint Viator graduate set his feet and delivered a 25-yard pass, on the money, to wide receiver Rome Odunze, who ultimately could not hang on. While Kmet would leave the game with a concussion later in the game, Johnson was still talking about that play and Kmet’s versatility after the game.
“He’s an extremely talented athlete to start with, but he’s got a hose for an arm,” Johnson said in an interview Monday on ESPN Chicago. “We ran [the play] full speed on Friday against our defense… Cole threw this ball over 60 yards in the air on the money. That’s when I knew I have to call this.”
As it turns out, Kmet’s high school football coach, Dave Archibald, was watching the game and he was not surprised.
Cole Kmet stays in touch with his former football coach and teacher at Saint Viator, Fr. Dan Hall, seen here at Notre Dame in 2018
“We featured Cole in the wildcat position a lot,” says Archibald, now head football coach and assistant athletic director at Brookfield Academy, outside of Milwaukee. “I knew if we absolutely needed a yard or two, we could use that play.”
Mostly, Kmet would run out of the play, but in practice, Archibald said, they also had him passing as quarterback in wildcat plays. Archibald clearly remembers Kmet throwing a pass in the team’s second round of the playoffs against Lake Forest, which they narrowly lost.
In the Bears game, Archibald described Kmet’s pass downfield to Odunze as a “fast ball,” for its speed and accuracy. It should come as no surprise, then, that Kmet was a two-sport athlete in high school — and in his first year at Notre Dame. In the spring season, he also played baseball as a starting left handed pitcher.
In fact, Kmet was the winning pitcher in the state quarterfinal and semifinal games of the IHSA championship series his senior year (2017). He went on to slug a game-winning double in the title game over Marian Catholic to secure the first state championship for Saint Viator in school history.
Chicago Bears tight end Cole Kmet autographs a T-shirt for special athletes in 2023. (Photo courtesy of the Chicago Bears)
Kmet also turned heads last year, when the Bears played the Jacksonville Jaguars in London. When the Bears starting long snapper, Scott Daly, left the game in the first quarter with an injury, Kmet got the call — and he answered it. He successfully snapped the ball in four, point-after kicks by Carlos Santos and another for a field goal, though the kick was blocked.
He would go on to be named Special Teams Player of the Week by the NFL, thought to be the first long snapper to win the award. Bears media sources later acknowledged that Kmet takes a few reps as long snapper at every practice, as an emergency backup. He did the same thing in high school, his coaches say, leading them to be amazed at his versatility.
“I can’t say that Cole surprises me with what he does on the field,” Archibald says. “Certainly he had to put in the work at Notre Dame and continue to progress in the game, but the potential of an NFL path was something I saw when he was in high school.”
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