TrenBS

Its a nice stadium with solid judges and good logistics, and bedford wasnt on this date originally so for an early season performance its a no brainer Wylies stadium is on the older end and HEB is a BOA oriented competition, so for UIL priority groups Melissa is the only option in DFW with all the perks

Its interesting that Hebrons commiting to Melissa over Bedford, probably wants the show in a more completed state before getting a BOA rank

Guard rule is a no brainer, colorguard should have more impact across the board and having their own judge is very appropriate for the state contest. For rule 1 (not CG) I dont think its necessarily a setup for D2 contests rather its so bands success are reliant on completely different programs being successful at region. I dont think it should pass for 2A-4A, but 5A-6A it feels like a no brainer considering it only adds 1-2 slots each Rule 2 just needs a little more definition (what declares a round up? 21 to 5 slots or use a top half system where you need 23-24 to have 5 slots? Where is the line) but otherwise this should absolutely pass in some form at the very least for 4A-6A due to declining enrollment being combined with way more dense, competitive areas. Rule 3 and 5 just depend on how fast UIL wants to make these sort of changes (rule 3 needs an announcement 1 year+ in advance for scheduling and rule 5 needs enough judges to not spread the state thin) Rule 4 should exist for UIL because it has a fundamentally different scoring system than BOA. BOA is much more “bubble” based where point differences in a sub caption is much more deliberate (a 28 in GE is COMPLETELY different to a 34 in GE) and compared only to bands relative to each other which UIL uses ordinals, and makes scoring COMPLETELY comparison based. At 2022 state almost everyone down to 20 were within 30-70 points out of 1000 to each other and in the same 2-3 sub-boxes, which means schools like Dawson, if using the BOA system, were darn close to Hebron in about every regard (This got fixed with stricter criteria post 2021-2022) (everyone is relative to 1st place rather than the bubble in BOA along with point differences having significantly more meaning). Movement to the top from the bottom is much harder when the bottom is all clustered together and does create bias since theyre all compared to each other resulting in lower ordinal scores compared to the top half, which for smaller areas only emphasizes a divide which could be nonexistent. I along with others argue that UIL should just be random performance time in general for finals rather than the 4-5 rhetoric, since schools like Vandegrift and Hebron could perform 1st and make state regardless, which would also make it easier for judges to properly compare and score relative to the top since the finalists will play right next to bands competing to merely qualify.

Now that TXbands is fixed (hooray!) we can finally discuss the rule changes that UIL proposed in their fall meeting agenda. The most interesting ones to me are the guard judge at the 5A/6A SMBC and rules 2, 3, 5, 7, and 9 (9 for a completely different reason than the others). This could change the near future structure of UIL marching and have major implications for future changes moving forward, but what do yall think?

ITS FIXED YAY

I didnt think small divisions were going to see much change since they usually correct themselves once the district gets enough resources, which usually is followed by increasing enrollment (Argyle for example) 5A changes Im frankly uncertain how they will approach it with the top 3 and some others moving up, maybe area B splits a region off to balance the areas, but that seems like a middle-low priority especially with Wakeland moving up and the area correcting itself eventually 6A is a complete coin toss, I hope they dissolve J and just do big areas as 6A enrollment in DFW declines on average, but thats not even looking at the Mid-East Texas areas which also need realignment bad

Ideally, 2026 because of Wakeland I dont see a world where UIL lets Area J with 5 state finalist level groups exist at the same time as an Area C with 2 bands barely cracking the 20s and having the first non Area A/G band place in the bottom 3 for the first time in years exist at the same time Plus with declining enrollment combining the areas future proofs the issues we face with lower 6A numbers in DFW such as with Waxahachie

Just for good faith heres a mockup of what I think the top 15-14 would look by the 2028 alignment cycle, assuming Waxahachie moves down and B breaks 35 bands with new 6As in Prosper and other districts Like I said B is a little more strict, but it makes WAY more sense than the current form (for 2026 alignment just put Wax in 4th) EDIT: I misspoke in the initial post, B having 24 and 25 causes the rosters to be aligned band roster wise, so this is what I meant, apologies

You cant do this at all (swapping regions). Removing even one region that isnt 2 creates an LISD monopoly because theres only 3 slots for state now, and moving 2 anywhere creates an area with less than 15 bands, which is only 2 state slots between WylieISD, ProsperISD, Wakeland, and McKinneyISD which makes zero sense from a logistical standpoint and a balance stand point. You also cant really move individual districts without just flat out gerrymandering and it throws the alignment map way out of whack, only time this is done is for small division alignment where there is significantly more space between schools, so you need to look at it from a region by region standpoint. Area J was made ("geographical representation" is flat out wrong and dis-proven from this past alignment cycle) to counter the rising enrollment and size of 6A classification in DFW, which is no longer the case, clearly.) Area C now has ZERO potential state finalists in the short run (which they've had ZERO total since the J establishment) unless Forney just magically improves way faster then they have been the last 4 years and outpaces Prosper, LD Bell, 7 Lakes, Cy Fair, and the other bands that have significantly more momentum and show it more than Forney has (not impossible, but Im not holding my breath for something so random). J needs to be dissolved because its existence is problematic in just about every capacity for anyone not named "Hebron" "Marcus" "Flower Mound" or "Prosper". J needs to be dissolved, move 2 to C and 24/25 to B, with Waxahachie going away that makes the other 3 state slots that are a part of C open for Rockwall, Wylie, Garland, and Forney districts to compete in, B is a little more cutthroat but it allows Southlake Keller and McKinney districts the CHANCE to succeed with more available slots (especially with Timber being consistent and Keller sitting in the high teens-low 20s), and is overall WAY better balanced, and logistically removing the need for 5 extra judges, a stadium to host it at, and volunteers, which with higher density areas roster wise adds way more man power

The Blue Devils just "randomly" posted their multicam on youtube super high quality for free, so I imagine we know where BD staff stands with this stuff going on haha

North is a true wildcard right now, these past 2 years they've made A LOT of money (revenue is literally DOUBLE their expenses), and a lot of what I heard there was a ton of internal changes after the head director left which negatively affected them in the short run. That being said, I think they range from 2nd-6th, behind potentially Melissa Speaking of, Melissas new head (to me) seems really good. Internally the band is ran with performance as the priority and is very well structured and the director is extremely pragmatic. If 5 go to state here Id honestly have them as a lock from potential performance ability alone. Very statistics based with their improvement and its a fat incline individually, will just depend how well this will transfer to marching band

Im talking purely about 6A, just because a region changes in one division doesnt mean it changes for all of them

Its just the 2024 map right now, and I expect J to get split to B and C with 24 to B and 2/25 to C. If not, then UIL is likely making a major rule change that will affect how area functions since H and J are downright horrible at the moment and B/C are starting to lag behind some of the other areas with the high state bubble

Made this for fun, just splitting J and balancing the two

Surprisingly lower than what I was expecting, and McKinney Boyd being the biggest was interesting… I also heard they may take 220 bands instead of 250 into 6A, which could dramatically change the rosters

I agree frankly with having larger areas, it keeps 5A and 6A pretty consistent with the pipeline roster wise, I just want to see the monopolies at the 6A level addressed without butchering lower divisions, and a medalist rule/ratio change would address that without affecting zoning All I really want to see is to not have district monopolies in the areas that leave no room for the 20-30 bubble bands to be represented, unless they wanted only the elite programs to go to state. If that was the priority, we wouldve seen A and G get dissolved into other areas to boost the more affluent districts/bands ability to qualify and compete, which would be terrible and is obvious that its not the priority.

I mean its always hovered around 40-43 as of late, but I get that. we dont want to inflate the numbers so logistics can exist, so its a difficult area to touch in regards to rule changing Edit: and if people want to find what the top 250 bands are roster wise to find the 6A cutoff, be my guest lol

We are actively SHRINKING areas right now... ALL of DFW has been broken down into barely 20 band areas and could dip below that if realignment continues to trend, which a lot of the other 6A areas are following this trend. I dont know why you are saying 20-25 bands is a bigger size for 6A when we had a bunch of areas in the 30s years prior to now, which changing the STATE QUALIFIER TO AREA RATIO TO ADD MORE STATE QUALIFIERS PER AMOUNT OF AREA PEOPLE would not affect allotment. Areas are actively shrinking and are getting dominated by individual districts. I wouldnt be surprised if area H is all LeanderISD for state qualifiers, and if area J remains its going to be the exact same top 4 from the past 2 years. The A and G areas are also getting smaller barely taking 3 bands and about to have to start doing prelims only events if they continue to trend downwards. All changing the ratio does is add more state slots, it doesn't make the area any bigger or smaller and I don't know what line of reasoning you followed to reach that point that making the ratio of state to area smaller would shrink any of the areas or lead to less qualifiers, cause that's wrong. Area allotment is completely different from the state qualifier ratio, please read which is clearly posted on the UIL site, and if you aren't trying to argue that changing the ratio would lead to smaller areas or less qualifiers, which it DOESN'T, I genuinely have no idea what you are trying to say.

Thats... What I said?😅 Is that not specifically what I said in bold? the underlined portion in the original proposal is extra and not completely necessary but I specifically said "for each area with a state medalist the ratio of every area qualifier to state qualifier in these respective areas gets lowered from 5:1->4:1"

I think you misunderstand or I don't follow what you're trying to say. If you lower the amount of area qualifiers to a state slot from 5 to 4 it increases the amount of bands who advance to state per area. For example, Area J has 20 bands (22 but it wouldn't matter) with 4 bands advancing to state because 20 bands divided by 5 (for every 5 area qualifiers) is 4, its a 5:1 ratio for area:state, this proposal lowers that ratio to 4:1 which would add a slot at area J since 20/4 is 5 The issue with this pretty exclusively is with logistics, since we would add about 7-9 slots (area I and D skew this heavily), there should reasonably only be 45 slots at most and we would be looking at 48 slots at MINIMUM. The only way I could think to balance this rule is maybe combining it with the medalist rule that got proposed and had no action (not dead, just no action). Maybe the rule could look like this: For each area with a state medalist the ratio of every area qualifier to state qualifier in these respective areas gets lowered from 5:1->4:1. and for every additional medalist to an area another slot is added. (not certain about this one) Little too technical for UIL, but this could be the best solution for this medalist rule that accounts for district monopolies while not giving a bunch of areas free slots they didn't need (area C, F, A, and G for example since they don't suffer the same issues as H, J, and D)

I came up with a prediction for if area J gets dissolved since that's the most likely outcome, but it essentially boils down to putting regions 2 and 25 in C and 24 in B and putting Northwest in area B as well. Looking at this, I get it. Area J makes complete sense from a logistic standpoint and competitive with the current area format. I think theres some merit to this with raising the bar for area finals, but I think itd be better to balance what we have, and probably have a medalist rule or change the amount of area bands needed to add a state slot.

I know this may be shocking... but: CONFIRMED: McKinney, McKinney North, and McKinney Boyd! (exhibition)

It only affects their freshman class so theres no way they drop below finals just because of a single class whos mostly alternates anyways. If it does end up happening than you are right, but I have enough trust in the current staff to at least remain in area finals In 3 years however... could be the case if the feeder school doesnt improve. They are revamping the facilities and they are improving, but they are still the weakest on average by a decent margin

McKinney North is going to EVENTUALLY become really strong after these new attendance alignments in MISD. But for now they got the short end of the stick because the main feeder is experiencing major revamps and changes, but is overall the weakest school in the district (for now) I think theyll probably be 6th next year unless the staff is locked in. They are losing a lot of incoming talent but I dont know how itll affect them besides them just being way smaller next year.

They recently dropped their drafts for the new borders, and McKinney North will 1000% be 5A. McKinneyISD EFAC Go to meeting 6 for the drafts, but it essentially has each high school having 2 full feeder middle schools and North has 1 with traces from 2. Its going to make McKinney Boyd and High WAY stronger band wise since they get 1 great feeder and an ok/good one each, while North gets weaker rosters since theyre still improving their main feeder, which currently is the weakest band wise. But this should benefit every high school in the long run.