No easy road for rebuilding Noles

Next season’s schedule features several challenges.

The ACC’s schedule-makers did not necessarily give Willie Taggart a great welcoming gift for his first season as Florida State’s head coach.

The Seminoles’ 2018 football schedule, which was released Wednesday afternoon along with those for the rest of the Atlantic Coast Conference, features two very difficult stretches — back-to-back road games against Louisville and Miami (both knocked off FSU in Tallahassee last season), and a very challenging threeweek stretch — a home game against Clemson followed by road trips to N.C. State and Notre Dame.

FSU’s 2018 schedule was going to be challenging no matter how it was constructed. The Seminoles only play two teams who finished with losing records last season — Florida and Syracuse. The other 10 teams posted a combined mark of 89-41.

Clemson went 12-2, Miami and Notre Dame each won 10 games, and six other FSU opponents won at least eight games in 2017.

Florida State hopes to have Deondre Francois healthy going. He was injured in the 2017 season opener against Alabama and replaced by freshman James Blackman (Glades Central), who showed improvement over the season and led the Seminoles to their 36th straight season with a bowl appearance.

Offensive coordinator hired: The new offensive coordinator has been hired.

According to Yahoo! Sports and Fox Sports, Taggart has tabbed Maryland’s Walt Bell to be the latest member of the Seminoles’ coaching staff.

Bell was the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Maryland for the last two seasons.

Despite dealing with a rash of injuries, the Terrapins had some impressive moments in 2017 — including putting up 51 points in a season-opening win at Texas.

In his first year at Maryland, Bell’s offense posted 173 points in its first four games and finished with 2,594 rushing yards — the first time in 13 years a Maryland offense had posted more than 2,500 yards rushing.

According to a story in Sports Illustrated in December of 2015, Bell turned down an offer to be the head coach at Louisiana-Monroe. At 31, he would’ve been the youngest head coach in the FBS had he accepted.

Fox Sports’ Bruce Feldman reported on Tuesday night that David Kelly, who came with Taggart from Oregon, will be the Seminoles’ receivers coach.