Jason Candle’s staff at the University of Toledo is starting to take shape.

Candle hired Oklahoma State special teams coordinator Robby Discher to the same position at Toledo, and Discher will start immediately as the Rockets prepare to play No. 24 Temple on Dec. 22 in the Boca Raton Bowl.

Further, Candle said Saturday that he will retain wide receivers coach Derek Sage and running backs coach Anthony Johnson. Sage and Johnson will stay in the same positions.

Director of player personnel Andrew Terwilliger took over as the director of operations with that position vacant, and Candle said Terwilliger will stay there permanently.

Defensive line coach Eli Rasheed, who has accepted an offer to join former Toledo coach Matt Campbell at Iowa State, will coach for UT in the bowl game, Candle said.

Candle also said that defensive coordinator Jon Heacock, whom Campbell has been courting to come to ISU, also will stick with Toledo at least through the bowl game.

Campbell took six staff members from Toledo to Iowa State who already have started working on the Cyclones’ behalf.

To fill some of the gaps left behind by departed staff members, UT graduate assistants have seen elevated roles as the Rockets prepare for Temple.

“It’s kind of been by committee on special teams, offensively, and defensively,” Candle said. “Those guys have all done a good job of having to step into a little bit more on-the-field stuff and kind of guide our guys to getting prepared.”

Two of Toledo’s graduate assistants, Jeff Myers and Christian Smith, played for the Rockets. Smith, a defensive lineman at UT from 2010-13, has been part of the Toledo staff as a GA for two seasons.

Myers, a former offensive lineman, was the Rockets’ starting left guard last season, and joined the staff as a GA after exhausting his eligibility.

As they have had to accept more serious roles, Candle said knowledge of the playbook has been invaluable.

“Some of those guys played here, and that’s a big deal,” Candle said. “They know the schemes inside and out because they’ve been in it. Christian’s been part of this thing for six or seven years now.”

As far as elevating some of the graduate assistants to full-time gigs, Candle said he has not made a decision yet.

RUSSELL SUSPENDED: Toledo wide receiver Alonzo Russell will miss the first half of the Boca Raton Bowl stemming from a targeting penalty in the Rockets’ final regular season game.

Russell will not face any additional punishment for a blindside hit against Broncos safety Asantay Brown, whom Russell injured with a helmet-to-helmet collision in the fourth quarter of UT’s 35-30 loss Nov. 27. Brown, who is expected to return to full health, left the game on a stretcher and was transported to UT Medical Center.

WOODSIDE SET: Candle said that UT backup quarterback Logan Woodside will not appear in the Boca Raton Bowl no matter what happens, to preserve Woodside’s redshirt.

Quarterback Phillip Ely won the starting job in training camp competition with Woodside, though UT played Michael Julian as the backup all season. Woodside, who made one emergency start as a freshman and started most of 2014 because of Ely’s injury, never had the chance to redshirt.

Ely stayed healthy all season, allowing Woodside to sit out the season and retain a year of eligibility.

Woodside will be a redshirt junior next season.

Contact Nicholas Piotrowicz at: npiotrowicz@theblade.com, 724-6110, or on Twitter @NickPiotrowicz

First Published December 14, 2015, 5:02 a.m.