FSU Football: 2019 Noles schedule ranked among hardest of ACC teams

FSU football knows that they will face an easier schedule of opponents than what they faced last season, but it still is going to be full of issues.

Before the 2018 season started for the FSU football team, the general consensus was that the Seminoles were going to have a struggle ahead of them during the following season’s campaign with a schedule that featured teams like Clemson, Florida, Notre Dame and even more that could get in their way.

Well, by now the secret is out that the schedule for the Seminoles lived up to expectations if you are not a fan of the garnet and gold as the Noles lost four of their final five games and finished the season with a 5-7 record for the year – the first losing season for the FSU football team in over four decades.

In 2019, the Noles know that they will still have a slate of tough teams – Clemson still remains in the conference as do teams like Miami and N.C. State – but head coach Willie Taggart knows he breaths a sigh of relief with a schedule that is much easier than what Taggart’s team took on during the previous season in Tallahassee and elsewhere.

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Or is it easier?

This week, CBSSports.com ranked the ACC’s strength of schedules for the 2019 slate and – in something that was a surprise to a decent amount of people in the FSU football camp – the Seminoles’ slate of games were ranked as the fourth toughest of the 14 teams in the conference.

"The noncon has what should be a couple of cupcakes in UL-Monroe and Alabama State, but that’s balanced out with an opener against Boise State in Jacksonville as well as the annual tilt with the (Florida) Gators…In other bad news, the Noles will hit the road to face Clemson this season, but at least they’ll be doing so off a bye."

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say that the Seminoles have a dozen cupcakes ahead of them and the road to Charlotte for the conference’s title game is as easy as it was during the 2013 season – but the Noles have to be happy that the Fighting Irish have been replaced by Boise State and Northern Illinois got exchanged for ULM.

If you are Taggart right now, the road toward a winning regular season record and a bowl game looks a lot more of a possibility this coming season – just in time to take some of the pressure off after a saucy offseason in Tallahassee.