BandNerd07

The USBands Burleson Regional will be held in October 12 at the Burleson ISD Stadium. There will be a maximum of 20 bands in prelims and 10 bands in finals. Confirmed Bands (18/20): Group I Diamond Hill-Jarvis HS Grand Saline HS Group II City View HS Highland Park HS Juan Seguin HS La Vega HS Lamar HS Southwest HS Group III Belton HS Burleson HS Corsicana HS Denton HS Ellison HS Everman HS Frisco HS Frisco Memorial HS Paschal HS Ryan HS Exhibition University of Texas at Arlington

The USBands Dallas Regional will be held on October 5 at the Crowley ISD Multi-Purpose Stadium in Fort Worth. There will be a maximum of 30 bands in prelims and 12 bands in finals. Confirmed Bands (18/30): Group I Grand Saline HS Western Hills HS Group II Lamar HS Naaman Forest HS South Garland HS Southwest HS Group III Burleson HS Cleburne HS Denison HS Everman HS Garland HS Midlothian Heritage HS North Crowley HS North Forney HS Rowlett HS Summit HS Winnsboro HS Group IV Chisholm Trail HS Granbury HS John Horn HS Richland HS Weatherford HS Group V Byron Nelson HS Burleson Centennial HS Richardson HS Unknown 2024 Classification Crowley HS

The USBands Saginaw Regional will be held on September 28 at the Rough Rider Stadium. Confirmed Bands Group I Grand Saline HS Group II City View HS Eagle Mountain HS Naaman Forest HS Sanger HS Group III Castleberry HS Chisholm Trail HS Cleburne HS Denison HS Lamar HS Midlothian Heritage HS North Crowley HS Robinson HS Group IV Birdville HS Fossil Ridge HS James Martin HS Weatherford HS Group V Saginaw HS

So i definitely see a lot of yall's points about the SR and GN, but if we're taking about the SR side of things, I think it should be a rotating contest and be held at the major dome stadiums once every 3 years to give more bands that don't have the money or resources to travel to SA an opportunity to experience a SR. So here's an example: 2024 - Alamodome (SA/Austin Area) 2025 - AT&T Stadium (Dallas/Fort Worth Area) 2026 - NRG Stadium (Houston Area) 2027 - It repeats itself Of course this isn't going to happen, and probably never will. If anything this was just a dream/idea.

Date: October 26 Location: Birdville ISD FAAC (most likely) Well, Area F definitely surprised me in many ways this past season, like Birdville making state, CH and Azle not making state, Cleburne making finals, Arlington Heights placing way higher than expected, and Brewer and Burleson placing way lower than expected. Anyways, I think this will be the year that area F sends 5 bands to state due to Chisholm Trail, Fossil Ridge, and Paschal dropping to 5A. Southwest is dropping to 4A but the current 6A bands dropping make up for it. We would have 30 bands in area F next year, so if every band were to make 1's (which probably won't), there would be a maximum of 12 finalists and 6 state advancers. So we'll just go with the 10 and 5. I think there could be a mix up in the state advancers this year now with Fossil Ridge being in this area. I think they might use this (being dropped) to their advantage and return to the dome this year, but of course they'll need to get past Birdville, Richland, Centennial, and Aledo but I believe they will if they work hard enough.

I think the problem with North Texas is that there's just too many powerhouse regions and areas. Looking at the region side of things, I notice that there are extremely strong regions in North Texas, specifically regions 2 (LISD, Braswell, Byron Nelson), 24 (Little Elm, Prosper, and McKinney), and 31 (Coppell, HEB, Haltom, Carroll). Really every region is going to have a strong program (Rockwall and Forney from 3, Lake Ridge from 5, RISD, and Dville from 20, Plano from 25, and KISD from 30) but regions 2, 24, and 31 are the most notable. What really needs to happen is a major region/area realignment, even if it means forming a new region (like how 30/31 came to be in 2016) or just a new area, this issue needs to be responded. There is definitely no doubt that North Texas is the most competitve region in TX for marching band, even more so than Houston, Austin, San Antonio, etc.

So basically we have 38 total bands in Area B and we are losing 5 and only gaining 1. Lancaster (the only band that Area B picks up) unfortunately has a long track record on getting not 1's, so that doesn't really help our case. If we take the three that didn't qualify (which are not going anywhere btw) plus Lancaster, we'd have exactly 30 bands, which means we can't have anymore bands that qualified last year not qualify this year or we'll only have 5 bands advance.

Date: November 2, 2024 Location: Mesquite Memorial Stadium (most likely) Well, as if Area C hadn’t been more competitive, it seems like its going to be even more competitive than it already was, now that Forney is in the mix (let’s just see if they are ready to compete with the big dogs in 6A). This has always been a fun one with just about every single band having finals potential and the top 15 having state potential. This is arguably the toughest area in the state of Texas and truly no one is safe (except the LISD trio of course) but you get the idea.

Chisholm Trail, DeSoto, Fossil Ridge, Highland Park, and Paschal dropped

Looking at Area B, I definitely thought this was one of the strongest areas last year due to how many programs attended, and how many state spots we had. There were 7 state spots, the most out of any area, but unfortunately that will most likely change this year. With several programs dropping to 5A, we may be back to only sending 5-6 bands to state. Last year we had 38 bands in Area B with 35 attending, but this year it looks like we are only going to have one program move up. So we’d only have 34 bands in the end, so the max number of bands we could advance to state would be 6, and it also doesn’t help that we have several programs fail to get a first division every single year, so we almost never send the maximum number of bands we possibly could have. Unless they realign the regions and areas, this area could just be a whole lot tougher these next two years.

Date: November 2, 2024 Location: Pennington Field (most likely)

So we got the 2024 BOA schedule a few days ago and I definitely noticed something. The BOA season has been pushed a week forward with McAllen happening on 9/21, Midland and Shenandoah on 9/28, Bedford on 10/5, and Prosper on 10/12. Austin, West Houston, and Waco don't have confirmed dates but Austin will likely happen on 9/21, West Houston on 10/5, and Waco on 10/26. Also, the UIL season has been pushed back a week with 3/5A area on 10/26, 2/4/6A on 11/2, as well as 1/3/5A state on 11/4-6 and 2/4/6A state on 11/11-13. I definitely wonder what USBands and independent contests plan on doing. We already have a confirmed date for the Wylie Marching Invitational which is on 10/5 (the same day as Bedford. Last year it was the same day as Shenandoah.) And depending on when the football season starts, the regular season may end before the 2/4/6A bands even have their area contest. I know it's complicated, but I wanted to make sure I'm not the only one that's concerned about the 2024 season.

I'm pretty sure opt ups aren't counted towards the max of 250 schools in 6A. I think that applies to the schools big enough to be in 6A. The smallest school if we're not going based on opt ups will be Edinburgh Vela with 2266 students so the 6A cutoff will still probably be 2265.

Hopefully the conference and division cutoffs will be made public tomorrow. I know it was around this time two years ago for the current realignment.

So while we are in the topic of realignment, I decided to make my mock realignment predictions for 6A. I'll be focusing on the DFW area for now because I'm not really familiar with the Austin, Houston, or San Antonio areas. Also, in this case the 6A cutoff would be 2280. This drops DeSoto, Chisholm Trail, Paschal, Highland Park, and Fossil Ridge down to 5A and brings Forney, Northwest, Lancaster, Longview, and Princeton up to 6A. And it appears that Garland ISD is opting Lakeview Centennial, Naaman Forest, and South Garland up. For DeSoto, i think theres a 50/50 chance of opting up to 6A , so we'll just have to wait and see. Anyways, here's the mock realignment: District 3-6A Crowley Boswell Haltom Keller Keller Central Timber Creek North Crowley Weatherford District 4-6A Coppell Trinity Bell Northwest Eaton Byron Nelson Southlake Carroll District 5-6A Braswell Guyer Little Elm McKinney McKinney Boyd Princeton Prosper Rock Hill District 6-6A Allen Lewisville Flower Mound Hebron Marcus Plano Plano East Plano West District 7-6A Jesuit Irving MacArthur Nimitz Richardson Berkner Lake Highlands Pearce District 8-6A Arlington Bowie Sam Houston Lamar Martin Mansfield Lake Ridge Mansfield Legacy District 9-6A Garland Lakeview Centennial (opt up) Naaman Forest (opt up) Rowlett Sachse North Garland South Garland (opt up) Wylie Wylie East District 10-6A Forney North Forney Longview Rockwall Rockwall Heath Royse City Tyler Legacy District 11-6A Cedar Hill Skyline Duncanville Grand Prairie Lancaster Mesquite Horn South Grand Prairie Waxahachie So there ya go, my mock realignment for 2024, and as you can see, there are a few changes made compared to this realignment. So if DeSoto does end up opting up, then Mesquite and Horn would probably move to 10-6A to prevent a 10-team District.

Did you use some sort of method to rank all of these bands or did you just rank them on personal preference? I know there's really no "official" method to rank but I'm just curious?

And another thing, I know Westwood beat Bowie at SA, but Bowie's placement at GN was higher than Westwood at SA. So basically if a band decided to extend their season, they have a chance to beat a band they didn't at the previous contest.

Okay, sorry I forgot to elaborate on this earlier. The correct placement during GNats were finals, or semi-finals for the bands that didn't make finals. This rule also applies for BOA SA. For the BOA contests it's really easy because since they use the same exact judging method, I just gathered results from both and ranked them from highest to lowest. For UIL State, it's more challenging because their ranking system is entirely different from BOA. In this case, i just automatically put bands that only attended UIL above a band that attended either BOA contest. I know it's not a perfect system, but this is just how I did it. Going into this, I knew there would be some disagrees but at the end of the day, I just went with what I went with.

So I have been noticing that Dave Campbell's Texas Football updates their weekly rankings for the top 25 football teams in 6A, so I've decided to do one for marching band. I took results from BOA Grand Nationals, BOA San Antonio, and UIL State into consideration when making this. I also have next to each band what their final contest was this season, and I do plan to do this as the season goes on next year. So anyways, here's the final top 25 from this year: Vandegrift (BOA San Antonio) Marcus (BOA San Antonio) Hebron (BOA Grand Nationals) Vista Ridge (BOA San Antonio) The Woodlands (BOA Grand Nationals) Ronald Reagan (BOA San Antonio) Flower Mound (UIL State) Pearland (BOA Grand Nationals) L.D. Bell (BOA San Antonio) Bridgeland (BOA San Antonio) Coppell (UIL State) Cy-Fair (UIL State) Waxahachie (UIL State) Round Rock (BOA Grand Nationals) Keller (BOA Grand Nationals) James Bowie (BOA Grand Nationals) Prosper (UIL State) Westlake (BOA San Antonio) Cedar Ridge (BOA San Antonio) Claudia Taylor Johnson (BOA Grand Nationals) Dripping Springs (BOA Grand Nationals) Seven Lakes (UIL State) Dickinson (UIL State) North Shore (UIL State) Timber Creek (BOA San Antonio) So there you have it. Congratulations to all of these bands for finishing in the top 25. Hope to see how this list could change in 2024 with a few newbies to 6A!

Real quick, I just wanted to say great job to everyone who performed in finals last night. While I am a little disappointed in the three TX bands that barely missed finals, I am happy for everyone for their accomplishments this season. 2023 was really just that year for marching band IMO. I wanna see Carolina Crown and McAdams HS in GNats next year.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out because I know South Garland is opted up to 6A in football but is still 5A for band.

Yeah, I do like your idea. Actually, the 2A-4A Area contests are like that. You have Area A (West TX), Area B (North TX), Area C (East TX), Area D (Central TX), and Area E (South TX). I think there's a real possibility that the UIL will go with this model for 5A/6A but we'll just have to wait and see. Anyways, focusing on the DFW area, if they decide to not go with this and continue to do the 9 Area system, this is how it could work: Regions 5/30 become Area A East and the existing Area A becomes Area A West. There would be 17 bands at most so 7 bands would advance to finals and 3 advance to state. Regions 2, 24, and 25 become Area B. There would be 21 bands at most so 10 bands would advance to finals and 4 advance to state. Regions 3, 20, 21, and 31 become Area C. There would be 29 bands at most so 10 bands would advance to finals and 5 advance to state. So in result, you would have 12 bands in the DFW area advance to state. This is pretty much the same number of bands that currently advance, but we would more likely actually see 12 bands this way, with more areas. What do y'all think of this?

https://www.texasfootball.com/article/2023/10/25/2023-uil-snapshot-day-enrollment-figures?ref=article_preview_img The list of schools and their enrollment numbers can be found here. Although nothing is confirmed yet (until the UIL releases the conference cutoffs likely in early December), we do have a basic understanding on which schools will rise to 6A or drop to 5A.

So I know we sent 7 bands to state year, but I'm afraid that might be a one time thing, mainly because a lot of bands here are being dropped down to 5A like Paschal, Chisholm Trail, DeSoto, and Highland Park, with not really a lot of replacements. I know we have Lancaster and Bryan Adams, but I doubt that they would qualify. Me might possibly also get Aledo and Granbury but it honestly just depends on the conference cutoffs (likely will be released in the first week of December). I don't know what the future holds for Area B but we might be back to only sending 5-6 bands to state. It just seems like the only way to certify 7 bands is to rezone another region to Area B.

Alright, so Dave Campbell's Texas Football posted the enrollment numbers some schools turned into the UIL for snapshot day. And it looks like Forney, Northwest and Princeton are pretty much guaranteed to move up to 6A and it looks like McKinney North is on the fence, it just depends on what the UIL decides to make the conference cutoffs. How do yall think they will do? Also it looks like GISD is opting South Garland up to 6A again, as well as Lakeview and Naaman. What will happen to LC and NF? I believe SG participates in the 5A area contest despite being a 6A school, but maybe that's because it was just opted up. So will LC and NF also compete for 5A at the area contests as well?