TrenBS

Dropping prediction now to see how I do in the pre-season guessing, this year will likely be a little more consistent with Bedford since a lot of repeat contenders will be here along with Marcus being a predictable 1st: 1. Marcus 2. Coppell 3. Wakeland 4. Prosper 5. SLC 6. Wylie 7. Braswell 8. Lone Star 9. McKinney High 10. McKinney North 11. Rockwall 12. Lebanon Trail/Forney/Rock Hill

Oh the members will transform alright, and their marching power level will increase 50 fold...

(North*)

WW/Brass/Perc Visual Ind/Ens

Lone Star could beat Wakeland with these new captions, they had beaten Wakeland in woodwinds and brass and visual ensemble, losing only in percussion and visual individual, along with the broader music ensemble and content captions, I think Wakeland is still more likely to win since its earlier, but could still change Otherwise not sure, McKinney North is going to be really strong next year with their director changes, to be honest, I think TMEA wont see much massive improvements but for marching they have a significantly more talented staff for DCI in particular, and hopefully it shows on these sheets this fall, Argyle probably is more in the 2nd/3rd range rather than 3rd/4th

Prediction: 1. Flower Mound (Vis Ind/Ens)* 2. Hebron (WW)* 3. Marcus (Br/Perc)* 4. Prosper/McKinney (Perc McKinney WW/Br Prosper) 5. McKinney/Prosper (Vis Ind Prosper) 6. Braswell (Vis Ens) 7. Wylie East 8. McKinney Boyd 9. Wylie 10. Rock Hill iykyk

To update on North, their associate director, Connor Vaughn is taking over as the head director, which in my opinion might make them even MORE of a powerhouse since he was a teacher in DCI (marched at Crown as a trumpet in 14 and 15, taught at Crossmen, Mandarans, and The Cadets their last year), and Mr.Williams was much more on the concert band side of things from what Ive been told over the years, so I dont think North will dip and will continue to further improve, their floor is very likely going to be 5th at area, but we shall see

The head director at McKinney North is leaving to go to the new Moseley middle school in ProsperISD, which, despite him being a large contributing factor to McKinney Norths success over the past 3-4 years, I dont think they will take a massive hit since the staff as a whole is rock solid, and the associate director was the one leading the marching side of things, so frankly I doubt they will decline or even dip temporarily besides new head director shuffle shenanigans. Heres my prediction as well: 1. Wakeland 2. Lone Star 3. McKinney North/Argyle (Argyle lead) 4. Argyle/McKinney North (North drag) 5. Lebanon Trail 6. Walnut Grove 7. Reedy 8. Emerson 9. Liberty 10. Memorial

Here is my predictions going just based off of the trend from 2023-2024, non-objective list of course, and free to disagree etc. (gets tiring writing that out even though its important to keep in mind haha) 1. Lone Star 2. McKinney High 3. Argyle 4. Rock Hill 5. Lakeview 6. Walnut Grove 7. Little Elm 8. Celina 9. Memorial 10. Liberty

Most programs Ive seen (at least for north DFW) refuse to let kids onto the bus without their water jugs since its a part of their uniform checklist, any program that doesnt have this as a requirement to go to any game, show, competition, or heck especially rehearsals is really setting them up for failure If this isnt mandatory for EVERY school, Im frankly shocked there hasnt been more lawsuits or reports of heatstroke

Director changes have been handled very well at least on the short run, in recent years. Many bigger schools with director changes keep the same methods throughout the first year and ease into the new head director's methodology, for better or worse, so I expect these schools to either remain in their spots or some bump up a lot.

I know about Wylie East but is Schroeder leaving Wylie HS? I havent heard of anything like that happening unless you mean fine arts director or the new assistant directors

I see, would say a Scholastic A and a National A have a major point difference in regards to like obvious differences (like is an SA score of 70 even remotely comparable to a National A 70, or is National A way beyond the Scholastic A standards?) I know Independent and Open make it muddy but talking mainly from the next in line in regards to NTCA

As somebody relatively new to looking at Winter Guard but familiar with band and predictions, predicting something like WGI in the current format seems difficult, and would likely need a more robust system of prediction like its own website. I dont think its a bad idea, heck I think somebody with some coding experience could easily set up a website that splits the predictions by contest, THEN by classification just so you dont have to predict 30+ groups placements at a time, since generally most WG contests dont have a finals. But I think hosting it on TXBands or Hornranks website would need some heavy restructuring

Im overall pretty new to watching winter guard, is there anywhere that explains the divisions/score differences between them, and if these scores translate at all in the WGI equivalent?