Tim Coffey

Crossmen were 6th in 92.

Aaaaahhh, that would be 45th.

"Penalize by 0.25 for every championship won by that corps" Hmmmm.......penalizing 21 year-olds because of what some 60 year-olds accomplished in 1976. Sure, seems fair.

Agreed. Not knowing brass technique, is a field read needed to better hear attacks, releases, intonation? I would think those are just as easy to read from either the field, or the box. But with the battery, some things can only be read accurately from the field.

That is the decision of the percussion heads, and DCI. Percussion really needs the two reads to get the best overall drum score. Things like battery execution, stick height and placement require an upclose view. Battery and pit ensemble balance are better heard from the box.

Isn't there a predefined tiebreaker system for first place?

Your cartoon appears on thread page..........wait for it...............137. You sir, are a genius.

If that happens, that would be unprecedented. However, you must remember that the brass and drum trophies are based on a three night average score, whereas a 4th place finish (if they stay there) is just a single night. To better correlate, you need to also average their ordinal position over the three nights. So if they indeed finish 4th, then their ordinal average is 3.3 (2,4,4).

But they are tied with Cadets at 38.85 for the Sanford trophy. Blue Devils is a tenth behind at 38.75. So the higher drum score tomorrow between Cadets and SCV will win the Sanford, even if BD wins drums tomorrow - unless BD wins drums by 2 tenths or more tomorrow. Then they win the Sanford.

I don't think they have been third since 2006 finals

I don't text. I don't own a smartphone. But someone texting only distracts you if you actively seek to be distracted (hopefully not going further and feigning some kind of offense). Simply look the other way.

If you recall 2007, Cadets had a penalty that dropped them to 4th (behind Phantom Regiment) in quarters. They came back strong in semis (2nd), but I think lost some ground pointwise at finals.

Box 5. Box 4. The stratifications are irrelevant when it is actual point spread in each subcategory that determines whether you finish 1st, 2nd, etc.. Assuming that the current top 4 finish as the final top 4 on Saturday (a near 100% certainty), one can make a rational argument that for any subcategory, any of the top 4 could win that category (with different probabilities). Brass could go to any of the top 4. Visual, GE, guard. No one can make a rational argument that Crown will finish first in drums on Saturday. And I'm not talking "The Sanford Trophy" here, which is a 3-night average score. If Crown could just be as strong in percussion as they are in every other category, Saturday evening would be almost a lock for them to win.

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I sensed your shared aggravation. I enjoyed chatting with the friend on the topics of "old man drum corps", so I didn't want to aggravate that by asking his friends to ditch the clappers.