archeryfan0267

They've been historically huge, and they're still up there this year! Here's the list of bands by performance size, according to the UIL SMBC program, with any ties listed in alphabetical order. 1st Cedar Park: 267 2nd Lone Star: 225 3rd Rouse: 224 4th Lake Belton: 223 5th Leander: 222 6th Barbers Hill: 220 T-7th Aledo: 215 T-7th Pieper: 215 9th Midlothian: 210 10th Wakeland: 200 11th Lakeview Centennial: 198 12th Hendrickson: 194 13th College Station: 190 14th North Mesquite: 186 15th Hays: 185 16th Mckinney North: 180 T-17th Friendswood: 175 T-17th Mount Pleasant: 175 T-17th Richland: 175 20th El Dorado: 170 21st Argyle: 168 22th Smithson Valley: 164 T-23rd Colleyville Heritage: 160 T-23rd Mequite Poteet: 160 25th Burleson Centennial: 155 T-26th Angleton: 154 T-26th Roma: 154 T-28th Lubbock: 153 T-28th Sharyland: 153 30th Hanks: 150 31st Sharyland Pioneer: 147 T-32nd A&M Consolidated: 140 T-32nd Kempner: 140 T-32nd Rio Grande City: 140 35th Lubbock Cooper: 136 36th Glenn: 121 37th Liberty Hill: 120 38th Lopez ECHS: 100

Yes, this is technically true looking at the graph, but I'd say the factors of band size and placement correlate with each other, band size doesn't cause higher placement. Not directly. As the bands tick up in size, they have more possible talent in their program. More good players to put on the field, with the ability to put the lower skilled and inexperienced members on JV marching bands or alternate spots on the field. Bigger programs most likely have superior teaching to make their students better, and directors that can retain kids coming out of feeder middle schools (get them to stay in band). In an easy example of Cedar Park, I imagine it's pretty easy to convince incoming 9th graders to be in the band that's a six-peating state champion. Larger bands generally do better, yes! But not because they're scored higher by judges because they're large, but because larger bands tend to have a deeper pool of talent.

I thought it'd be cool to make a graph showing the 5A State bands' placement relative to their band sizes. Got the member numbers from the UIL program Some points of interest and outliers: -Of the Top 10 largest bands, only 6 made finals. -Of the Top 5 largest bands, 4 were in the top half of finals, with the other one (Lake Belton, 4th largest band) missing finals at 13th, making them the largest band outside of finals with 223 members -Cedar Park (5A Champ) was significantly larger than any other band here, ranking as the biggest group with 267, far ahead of Lonestar's 2nd rank with 225 members. -Roma was the smallest band in finals, tying for the 26th largest band (154 members) and placing 12th in the competition. -BC was the second smallest band in finals, ranking as the 25th largest band, squeaking ahead of Roma with 155 members. They placed 9th in the competition. -Argyle was not too much larger, ranking as the 21st largest band with 168 members and placed 7th in the competition. -Glenn placed impressively high (16th in the competition) considering they were the 3rd smallest (36th largest) band here. -The largest size difference between two bands that placed next to each other in competition was a 98 member difference between Lakeview Centennial, who placed 34th in competition and had 198 members, and Lopez ECHS, who placed 35th in competition and had only 100 members. Lopez ECHS was also notably the smallest band at the competition by 20 members (Liberty Hill was 2nd smallest), while LC was the 11th largest band. -Close behind this difference is Glenn and Pieper. Glenn placed 16th in competition, just ahead of Pieper in 17th. Glenn (36th largest), with only 1 member more than Liberty Hill, had only 121 performers. Pieper (Tied 7th largest) had 215, making it a 94-member difference for the two bands. -Other neighboring bands with gaps in member size that are worth noting are Argyle and Lonestar's difference of 57, College Station and Liberty Hill's difference of 70, and Lake Belton and Colleyville Heritage's difference of 63. NUMBERS ARE COOL!

Bands will maybe only get a small amount of extra credit for having their whole show, otherwise the judges just judge what was performed. Not even close enough to warrant a 3 point gap. Point is, and same story with Wakeland and Lone Star's huge gap at BOA Prosper followed by a photo finish at Area finals, is that while competitions can give us hints at placements literally anything can happen in 1-2 weeks between performances.

They were buoyed to 6th in prelims by a Visual judge randomly putting them 2nd.

Top 5 stayed intact.. bottom 5 not so much haha

Woah. Haven't seen them since I drove to their preview over a month ago. This show is looking scary. Some weird mic setups for this recording, sounds like they put the mic right in front of the pit speakers so it's really front ensemble-heavy, the brass is definitely louder than the mic is giving them credit for.

What?

Finals

Prelims

Prelims.pdf Finals.pdf

Did they announce the prelims awards or just the schedule?

Okay that's a good point. Also their props look like they bought them off the Bluecoats in 2019/2021

Interesting. North should do good and again it's cool that they've found an indentity for themselves, however I think they should shoot for a little more variation from year to year. They've even been using these props for three straight years since 2022.

I saw Emerson too now. I could see them as high as 5th or 6th, but that depends on if they can actually clean it because it's got some work to do. It'll probably hurt them early season but hopefully they grow to fill those shoes left by the staff. Show concept is there though and I really like the Wild Nights intro. Also holy god I was able to see a video of Lonestar's opener from some recent football game (I don't know what week or when but it was at the Cowboys Indoor field in Frisco) but they are seriously looking to make a run for 1st this year, it's loud, it's difficult, and it's clean. Musically and visually