TrenBS

While my predictions are wildy different compared to yours (Wax, Forney, Rockwall/Sachse/Dville) I respect the commitment and the John Horn appreciation, I saw them at area 2018 in their prime, so I hope they can make it back to area finals/state eventually haha

I wouldnt mind some artificial slots (wont happen, of course) in the hyper competitive areas since last year we had 43. Area J, B, and D in particular are leaving out really strong groups with very little wiggle for bands that would realistically place in the 18-25 range, area D is notoriously the most competitive area, usually leaving Cedar (FREAKIN) Ridge, Moe and Gene Johnson, and Bowie, who are all state finalist contending groups MAYBE besides Bowie, but they are still in the 10s nowadays imo. If I were to add 4 (38-42) slots that keep it competitive I would do this: area A: 2 area B: 4-5 area C 4 area D 4-6 area E 5 area F 4 area G 2 area H 4 area I 4 area J 4-5

As a McKinney person, it feels we see rain once or twice a year outside of December where it rains but never snows, the forecast says rain but Id bet money that itll be light sprinkles until later in the evening, in which prelims results will be used. Normally I would be against prelims results being used but realistically its not going to determine much difference outside of ties (less chances) or finalists, which again wont matter if finals is rained out. It would suck since no retreat or anything, but theres lightning on Monday and Sunday, so I would rather have the safety of the students over forcing finals to happen in the scenario it rains a lot

Honestly given where the shows at theres not a whole lot they need to clean in regards to their current level, its mostly just music stuff and some individual moments, but again I dont see them having the time to reach the 4-5 area in regards to cleanliness, but can easily end up being 6th, the same way they can easily be 8th

Saw them at BOA Prosper, I think Boyds getting predicted a little low given that they didn’t have the closer on the field, but I dont see them above 6th tbh Wylie and Prosper are the contenders for 4th tbh, I would like them to tie so they both advance but for now I think Prosper is cleaner than Wylie with more marching and playing demand, but it could go either way and it wouldnt be surprising Braswell I think is getting placed a little high because of BOA success, even in 2023 when they beat Mustang at Midland they beat none of the McKinney schools at area, and even placed 16th at area which even with the argument of UIL funkiness (which does exist), being that far off of finals is telling. But I think they've made major improvements this year and is contending for finals, but they definitely have some dirt that UIL is going to punish Otherwise, I think McKinney High will likely be 6th, and Boyd/WEast will fight for 7th, and Braswell/Rock Hill/Little Elm are my personal contenders for 9/10, but thats more of a shot in the dark

Here is my final list going into region/5A area, and Im fairly confident on the gaps that will dictate the bubbles: 1. Hebron 2. Marcus -- (mini gap)-- 3. Flower Mound ---(gap)--- 4. Prosper 5. Wylie --(mini gap) 6. McKinney High 7. McKinney Boyd 8. Wylie East ---(gap)--- 9. Braswell 10. Little Elm 11. Rock Hill 12. Plano East I think the gaps will hold up, with variation in the gaps being completely up to the judges, and I don't see much movement between gaps happening besides either Braswell moving up or McKinney High moving up. I don't really see Boyd placing below 8th here, even with their less-than-stellar Prosper score compared to 2023, they did not have their closer on the field which certainly docked them points in performance captions when (to my knowledge) every other band had a completed show, as well as the sheets being fundamentally different in regards to prioritizing pure cleanliness and clarity, as opposed to General Effect which is more of the full package of music and visual performance, but again we will have to see how the contest turns out. Placements besides Hebron 1st are just their to dictate gaps, not what I think will personally happen, and I think Hebron will win due to musical difficulty and achievement, if we were to put more judges on visuals, Id say Marcus wins this pretty-handedly.

Gonna preface that Im not saying this cause Im salty about Boyd or McKinney schools missing cause I can totally get why, definitely not salty about those misses since it was a tough bubble But definitely not 100% on a couple if the spots, personally disagree with Wylie top half and North missing for Braswell, but Im not the judges so not gonna call them stupid, show design seems to lead the results here this year with some of the major discrepancies in visual/music execution, but besides my own subjective opinion the finals group makes sense

Rockwall in fact made bottom 6, they do bottom half for the first half of performances and top half for the later performances, but its still very impressive that yall made it regardless

Last post of a list, but this is my drum major salute rankings haha

Erm… not even halfway through Commerces show but they definitely win (if they competed) Wylie was honestly very hard for me to follow visually, those uniforms muddy the form really bad even though they did well, and WWs were dropping on some of those features, but the brass was great, I think they definitely have a shot at finals but not sure if I see them breaking single digits personally, love the show though just disagree on some of the design choices mainly lol

Im not certain if they did, but I got heavy Civ vibes at times, Im waiting for a band to do a Civ show haha

Very well, in regards to BOA for MISD id say yall are probably the best, I love how strong yalls low brass has gotten

I was thoroughly surprised and impressed with North Mesquite, I was definitely low balling them going into today but they played fantastic, definitely going to be strong in area C

This is what Im thinking so far, the Southlake-Rock Hill area feels pretty interchangeable depending on how the judges want to decide performance and visual GE, but I think North could end up on top of these groups if their GE scores go up, I also missed Wylie East and Lone Star, so I suppose this list is a tad preferential over objective opinion, but I think finals will look something like the top 12 and however Wylie performs later

Watching Whitesboro, its crazy just how evolved bands become even like 5 years, in 2019 DTing was only for the big dogs, now its becoming a standard to have many of these bands double tongue at some capacity, very impressed with how much everythings progressed over the years

In a similar vain, the judges should totally have a 2-3 way tie for 4th so we get the representation we deserve from this area at state lol

Just gonna say me and my girlfriend loved the bubbles from Southlake Carroll, they should make finals just for that haha

Dont get me wrong, I loved the aesthetic a lot, but volume wasn’t particularly amazing and feet had a lot of errors, but even then thats holding them to a high standard, this competition is super difficult so were really looking at individuals and diagonals over just simply the forms, and if they went to most areas/state they would be a lock for finals/top half

This is my current ranking, Mustang had a ton of foot errors from my POV which is why I have them lower, Im also not a judge so they could have bonkers GE haha

I think for UIL theres an argument for 3rd personally, the writing for them this year is very very strong, which usually is what held them back in previous years in my opinion

Honestly, dont change predictions on what other people say would be my advice, even if they end up being horribly wrong its your opinion, and making mistakes will let you become better next time, and who knows you may end up being right and making THEM look stupid🤷‍♂️ The thing with HS marching people tend to mess up which is a bi-product of how DCI functions is that nobody is entitled to positions, obviously legacy bands are going to be more likely to place high because they usually do, due to their staff and funding at the time being strong, but with Keller and CTJ you can see them placing low compared to how they usually place this year. We can probably expect this to keep happening with retirement of great staff and the development of new powerhouses (Pearland and Bridgeland Id say are the newest “powerhouses” given how recently successful they've been), so honestly do your opinions regardless of what others say, predictions are supposed to be fun and if theres only one “right” answer before a competition even begins, thats being tone deaf to the nature of HS marching

He meant blind as in not knowing which band is performing, not in the literal sense, although the wording is pretty funny lol

I agree, although I dont really think it will be much of an indicator unless a generally successful BOA band does very poor or a generally successful UIL band does REALLY well, or if one of them places really really bad, the scoring is just so different that its more of a foundation to start making proper guesses

Yeah thats how it is (6A should be 4 for every spot with how overly competitive 6A is but ssshhhhhh)

This is becoming a long response so Ill preface that I'm not yelling at you in particular, but I've also thought about comparing Grand Nationals to San Antonio, so this is more my thoughts on the matter lol Is Grand Nationals tougher in regards to finalists? Sure, definitely with Carmel Avon and Blue Springs the top half is extremely hard to break, but for the bottom half of finalists there's a strong argument that BOA San Antonio is more difficult, since Southlake, Prosper, and Hendrickson all made finals at BOA GN in 2022, and I couldn't even tell you the last time these bands either made BOA SA finals (or even beaten Wakeland at a BOA competition which typically places on the very low end of BOA SA finals, in which Southlake placed low in BOA Prosper finals and Hendrickson missed at a regional, albeit a very difficult one) From there it drops off even further, I know it's not really fair to compare scores between competitions, but the top 32 at San Antonio is breaking 80s and sometimes doesn't even fall below 82, while at GN it's fairly common to have multiple mid-high 70s scores which on the sheets is almost a whole area below an 80s score (80s being all "usually"s on the middle end, with 70s having low "usually"s, or high "sometime''s scores) and ignoring that, TX bands who are middle contenders at BOA San Antonio typically make finals at GN, or at the very least place very high in Semi-Finals Obviously, there can't be an objectively "right" opinion unless we held these contests at the same day, had the same judges score on the same standards, and placed people both in BOA SA and Grand Nationals, but saying that GN is absolutely way more competitive than BOA SA is being pretty reductive to the absolute depth of BOA SA, and at worst is a pretty slim margin to be judging both contests competitively, but I absolutely agree that top half of finals at Grand Nationals is way more competitive, particularly with Avon, Carmel, Broken Arrow, Blue Springs, and William Mason in particular, but top to bottom Id argue that BOA SA has more depth in competition