Ohio State has fired special teams coordinator Robby Discher after just nine games, the program announced Monday, Nov. 9, making him the first assistant dismissed during the season by head coach Ryan Day since Day took over the Buckeyes in 2019, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
The move came two days after Ohio State’s 41-28 home loss to Oregon, the Buckeyes’ third defeat of the season and their first three-loss campaign under Day. The loss dropped Ohio State to 6-3 overall and 4-2 in the Big Ten, and it turned in part on a special teams failure: Oregon converted a fake punt for 30 yards that caught the Buckeyes off guard, according to Reuters.
Day addressed that play afterward. “Getting off the field there before the fake punt would have been a huge stop and enabled us to get the ball on offense and eat up some more clock there in the second quarter,” Day said after the game, according to Reuters. He added that he would evaluate everything with his staff to find where the team was coming up short.
The numbers behind the decision had been building for weeks. Ohio State ranked 102nd among FBS teams in ESPN’s special teams efficiency metric through Week 10, according to The Dispatch, and its kickoff return unit ranked 118th nationally at 17.4 yards per return, USA Today reported. A week earlier at USC, the Buckeyes committed three special teams penalties and allowed a 44-yard punt return that set up a Trojans touchdown, Eleven Warriors reported.
Discher was hired in February from Illinois, where he had spent three seasons as special teams coordinator, in a deliberate effort to fix the third phase of the game. It was the first time since 2023 that Day’s staff had included a dedicated special teams coordinator; in 2024 and 2025 those duties were divided among position coaches, The Dispatch reported. Day said last month that he had not seen improvement from the unit through five games.
Under the terms of his contract, which The Dispatch obtained through a public records request, Discher signed a two-year deal and could be owed more than $500,000 in severance. He was due to make $450,000 in 2027, according to The Dispatch.
Ohio State has not announced who will oversee special teams for the rest of the season. The Buckeyes return to action Saturday, Nov. 14, at Northwestern, looking to end a two-game skid with three regular-season games remaining.
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