Ohio State is moving on from special teams coordinator Robby Discher after a season in which the Buckeyes never found their footing in the third phase.
CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz reported Monday morning that Ohio State is parting ways with Discher, who had been in Columbus for just nine months after arriving from Illinois in January. He was hired to clean up a unit that had been a problem area, but the Buckeyes kept running into special teams issues throughout the 2026 season.
The warning signs showed up early and kept coming. In the Week 2 loss at Texas, transfer kicker Connor Hawkins missed a 45-yard field goal attempt that would have pushed Ohio State to a two-score lead in the fourth quarter. Hawkins has still made 85.7 percent of his field goal attempts this season, but the kicking game was only one piece of a broader breakdown.
The return game never gave Ohio State much help, either. The Buckeyes rank 118th nationally in kickoff return average at 25.1 yards per return and 113th in punt return average at 13.8 yards per return.
Mistakes piled up again in the loss to USC, when Ohio State was flagged three times on special teams and gave up a 44-yard punt return that helped the Trojans seize field position.
Then came Saturday’s 41-28 loss to Oregon, where a fake punt extended a Ducks scoring drive. Oregon finished the possession with a touchdown, turning a 14-0 Ohio State lead into a game the Buckeyes would eventually lose by 13 points.
Ohio State had made a real push to fix the unit this offseason. Discher was the program’s first dedicated special teams coordinator since Parker Fleming left after the 2023 season, after the Buckeyes had spent the previous two years using a more shared approach to coaching special teams.
His résumé suggested the hire could work. Illinois ranked 16th nationally in ESPN’s special teams efficiency metric in 2024 and 30th in 2025 under Discher.
Ohio State finished 67th in that metric last season, and the hope was that his arrival, along with several transfer portal additions, would change the picture. It didn’t.
Ryan Day addressed the issue in October and didn’t try to dress it up.
“I don’t think I can sit here and say we’ve improved in special teams right now,” Day said. “We need to play better.”
He also made it clear the responsibility wasn’t limited to one coach.
“It’s not just Rob,” Day said. “Rob is the coordinator, so he’s in charge, but I’m in every meeting, the coaches are in every meeting, and we need to make sure that we’re getting better production out of the special teams.”
Now Ohio State is back at square one, trying once again to solve a problem that has lingered for several seasons.
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