LostChoirGuy

OK, we are less than a day away from the start of this contest and I am so excited! I haven't spent as much time actually watching videos this year as normal, so for most of these bands, this will be my first time seeing their show all season. There is a lot of talk about who will make finals (rightfully so) but I wanted to give a shoutout to so many other great bands that deserve recognition. I decided to create a list of my top 25 from each panel as well as a simulation for the top 11+11+8 if there had been a semifinals. I do not know enough about the lower classification bands to guess the hypothetical advancers based on class so I did not do that. If anyone knows how to create spoiler tags here, please let me know so I can make this wall of text appear nicer. Panel 1 Top 25 (in alphabetical order) Argyle Bowie College Park CT Johnson Cy Fair Cy Woods Del Rio Flower Mound Forney Foster Friendswood Glenn Hays Hendrickson Keller Keller Central Lake Travis Leander Marcus O'Connor Pearland Reagan Round Rock Sachse Timber Creek Panel 2 Top 25 (in alphabetical order) Alexander Brandeis Cedar Park Cedar Ridge Coppell Dawson Dripping Springs Hebron Highland Park JE Taylor Klein Oak LD Bell McNeil Oak Ridge Rock Hill Rouse Seven Lakes The Woodlands Vandegrift Vista Ridge Waxahachie Westlake Westwood Wylie Wylie East Semifinalists: Panel 1 Top 11 (in alphabetical order) Bowie CT Johnson Cy Fair Flower Mound Hendrickson Keller Marcus Pearland Reagan Round Rock Timber Creek Panel 2 Top 11 (in alphabetical order) Cedar Park Cedar Ridge Coppell Hebron LD Bell Rouse The Woodlands Vandegrift Vista Ridge Waxahachie Westlake Next 8 (in alphabetical order) Brandeis (Panel 2) Keller Central (Panel 1) Lake Travis (Panel 1) Leander (Panel 1) Rock Hill (Panel 2) Westwood (Panel 2) Wylie (Panel 2) Wylie East (Panel 2) Finalists: Panel 1 Top 5 (in alphabetical order) CT Johnson Flower Mound Marcus Reagan Round Rock Panel 2 Top 5 (in alphabetical order) Cedar Park Coppell Hebron Vista Ridge Vandegrift Next 4 (in alphabetical order) Cedar Ridge (Panel 2) Cy Fair (Panel 1) Keller (Panel 1) The Woodlands (Panel 2) Top 40 (in order) 1. Hebron (Panel 2) 2. Vandegrift (Panel 2) 3. Flower Mound (Panel 1) 4. Vista Ridge (Panel 2) 5. Cedar Park (Panel 2) 6. CT Johnson (Panel 1) 7. Reagan (Panel 1) 8. Coppell (Panel 2) 9. Marcus (Panel 1) 10. Cedar Ridge (Panel 2) 11. The Woodlands (Panel 2) 12. Round Rock (Panel 1) 13. Cy Fair (Panel 1) 14. Keller (Panel 1) 15. Rouse (Panel 2) 16. Westlake (Panel 2) 17. Pearland (Panel 1) 18. LD Bell (Panel 2) 19. Timber Creek (Panel 1) 20. Waxahachie (Panel 2) 21. Bowie (Panel 1) 22. Hendrickson (Panel 1) 23. Leander (Panel 1) 24. Wylie East (Panel 2) 25. Westwood (Panel 2) 26. Wylie (Panel 2) 27. Lake Travis (Panel 1) 28. Rock Hill (Panel 2) 29. Keller Central (Panel 1) 30. Brandeis (Panel 2) 31. Forney (Panel 1) 32. Seven Lakes (Panel 2) 33. Sachse (Panel 1) 34. Friendswood (Panel 1) 35. Klein Oak (Panel 2) 36. Cy Woods (Panel 1) 37. Foster (Panel 1) 38. Dripping Springs (Panel 2) 39. Oak Ridge (Panel 2) 40. Alexander (Panel 2) 41. Dawson (Panel 2) 42. College Park (Panel 1) 43. JE Taylor (Panel 2) 44. Argyle (Panel 1) 45. Highland Park (Panel 2) 46. O'Connor (Panel 1) 47. McNeil (Panel 2) 48. Hays (Panel 1) 49. Azle (Panel 2) 50. Churchill (Panel 2) Please forgive me for the length of this post!

Where do I find said video?

Honestly, given their early performance time and warming up in the rain on top of this, I think it's impressive they were still sitting as a projected state qualifier after prelims.

I went on a limb and had Central as my 6th place finisher in the predictions I submitted here. We will see if they can deliver in finals, should they be there. Go Keller ISD!

I loved JJ Pearce's show a few years ago when they made finals at Waco. I haven't seen what they have this year, but I know I was disappointed by their placement at the BOA contest they attended. Of course, they are a very strong concert band, so it could translate to more success in UIL.

I would definitely include Keller Central in the finals bubble.

Has Keller performed yet?

I'm curious to see if Keller has made up any ground on Wakeland with a few weeks of cleaning/ a more complete visual program. Wakeland will be at their very peak as it is their last contest, but I think Keller will be competitive against them. At least moreso than any of the bands at area would have been.

I may be mistaken, but I didn't see Rock Hill on the list of bands that got a 1. Did they qualify for area?

This is so ridiculous. I know there is no 5A State this year so it doesn't matter much, but Wakeland is easily a top 3 5A band this year and they don't even get to perform at area. Do they have any other contests?

I read something from Celina ISD that said they are anticipating having like 6-9 very large high schools when they build out.

Interesting list. Did you forget about Prosper and Wylie or purposefully leave them out?

Prosper has another school opening in I think 2 years. My guess is that they are going to be pretty successful within a couple of years like their district counterparts.

Wow Azle was very close to making finals here. They are having a great season!

I'd like to clarify because my post came out wrong. I don't think Austin area groups in general are overrated. I just meant when there are events that combine Austin and DFW bands together and people are coming up with predictions based on previous events, I think the DFW ones are sometimes overlooked. For instance, I see stuff like the 9th-12th team at BOA Austin ranked ahead of the 5th-8th from DFW on lots of predictions.

Yeah, I mentioned earlier in the season that there is a tendency to overrate Austin area bands in comparison to DFW bands and I think a large part of that is that many of the great programs don't participate as heavily in BOA or attend San Antonio.

The number of top level bands in DFW is ridiculous. Areas B and C are so stacked.

I know this will just make it more confusing, but I want to point out that the number of spots each area gets at state is not as strictly locked as was suggested on this thread. I can't remember the exact rule, but there is an obscure rule that any band getting a certain number of 1st or 2nd ordinal rankings gets qualified automatically, even if they don't place in a qualifying spot overall. We saw this recently in one of the Austin areas. This probably couldn't happen in Area B because of how many qualifying spots they have though. My point in bringing it up is that I agree that if there are scenarios in which more bands can qualify for state than was anticipated, they should also let ties for the last qualifying spot advance.

Keller has a history of taking somewhat boring designs and performing the heck out of them come end of the season. I feel pretty confident that they will continue their finals streak.

I think next year there could be an unprecedented amount of Texas groups going to Grand Nats with so many groups trying to prepare to make the dive into national competition (or return after a long time away) and it may mean that several groups we would expect to see in finals don't make it.

I think you may be mistaking Mansfield Legacy and Midland Legacy (formerly Midland Lee). Mansfield Legacy did not compete here.

I would really love to see any recording from this contest as well. I still have not seen anything from Hebron or Flower Mound as was not able to watch tonight.

Melissa is one of the biggest questions in my opinion. They are a fantastic band with lots of UIL success but I have no idea what to expect from them in BOA competition. I'm sure they will be great though!

I completely agree. I have no idea how much progress will be made in one week before this regional, but we see this year after year in San Antonio where people count out Keller due to mediocre early season results and they come out of nowhere with a highly executed and very demanding program and make it comfortably into finals.

Based on early season contests, Keller Central looks stronger than they have been in years. We could possibly see three Keller schools at state!