Blue Devils B Placement Friday Night?

[Jeff Ream]

yes the corps would have to ask to be reviewed. it's more than just number of shows and length of tour. they do a serious financial audit, and pretty much dig into all kinds of stuff organizationally

[flammaster]

They are mostly high school kids. It's not easy to start all days in mid May when you are still in high school. People might say "how did they place so high"? Well two words come to mind. (System Blue) All BD corps have the same system of training. That 15th place is of course due to how hard those great kids worked but there is also a lot of credit to that AWESOME staff!!!!

If I had to attribute their success into just one word.. ODELLO comes to mind. The father, wife and two son's are big parts of that corps.

The handful of corps they passed up happened to be a few that compete here and I never thought they could pass them in June. Then I heard their progress at Prelims and I just knew they would challenge them if not pass them entirely.

The entire field of corps this year was phenomenal. Being passed up by one or the other is nothing bad. I did not groan once...well...

That is what I said.

That is what Flammaster said. lol

[N.E. Brigand]

Last year, BDB placed 20th. From 20th to 15th in one year?

That's not so astonishing. Movement like that used to be pretty commonplace, but even over the past three seasons, there are multiple cases where placement from the previous year changed by three or more spots. I highlight in boldface examples that are as impressive as BDB's improvement this year over last:

2011-2012

Cavaliers 3rd > 8th

Crossmen 17th > 12th

Jersey Surf 25th > 20th

Troopers 14th > 18th

Cadets 1st > 4th

Oregon Crusaders 22nd > 19th

(Plus several more near the bottom because there were six fewer corps at 2012 championships than there had been in 2011.)

2012-2013

Genesis 29th > 23rd

Music City 31st > 25th

Troopers 18th > 13th

Mandarins 23rd > 18th

Academy 15th > 19th

Phantom Regiment 3rd > 6th

2013-2014

Spirit of Atlanta 11th > 17th

Blue Devils B 20th > 15th

7th Regiment 30th > 25th

Carolina Crown 1st > 5th

Pacific Crest 16th > 20th

Bluecoats 5th > 2nd

Blue Stars 12th > 9th

Academy 19th > 16th

Vanguard Cadets 21st > 18th

Mandarins 18th > 21st

All that said, there was some unusual scoring in Open Class this year. The most perplexing example was the show in Manchester on July 19, where all five corps received scores comparable to or even better than the scores they earned in O.C. Prelims more than two weeks later--as hostrauser explicitly predicted (for instance, Racine Scouts dropped from 60.400 to 58.850 over 15 days). But even before that, we saw Spartans and 7th Regiment on the east coast earning scores significantly above those earned by Blue Devils B and Vanguard Cadets on the west coast--and yet when they met head to head, BDB and SCVC were clearly on top. Meanwhile, we saw BDB going from being a point behind Mandarins on July 6 to four points ahead of them on August 8.

[DrumManTx]

Now irrelevant. Nothing to see here.

Edited August 15, 2014 by DrumManTx

[soccerguy315]

flammaster drunk posting on dcp...

[cixelsyd]

In which case, if 10 min. really is the required minimum time, than DCI was grading the O.C. corps on a curve in that respect--and Pioneer and Cascades in particular may have cause to complain about scoring, on the grounds that they would have performed a shorter (and thus easier-to-clean) show too, if they weren't going to be penalized for doing so.

Well, since there appear to be no penalties even when someone deviates from the allotted time, then Pioneer/Cascades appear to have that option available. (Patria performed for 20 minutes; if that gets no penalty, what would?)

[N.E. Brigand]

Well, since there appear to be no penalties even when someone deviates from the allotted time, then Pioneer/Cascades appear to have that option available. (Patria performed for 20 minutes; if that gets no penalty, what would?)

Patria is an interesting case. I think Taipei Yuehfu last year likewise had a show that ran (a little) too long. Because Yuehfu had overage members, they were "International Class" and thus didn't bump any Open Class corps whose shows they outscored from from O.C. Finals. Perhaps something similar applies to Patria, and that's why a 20 min. show got no penalty.

[MisterA]

I thought this was an interesting year all around. BDB had a great show this year, and most of the corps in the 13-18 range had weaker than normal shows. This really shouldn't be any surprise, given how great BDB and VC have been over the last decade. Back when semis had top 17, Vanguard Cadets placed 17th in 2000, becoming the first time an A and B corps had both made semis(unless I have missed it happening before, if so I apologize to that organization). BDB, if I am not mistaken, now has the highest placement for a feeder cops. Congrats to BDB.

There have always been DII/Open Class corps that have been better than DI/World Class corps. If you remember, Pioneer used to be a DII corps that beat quite a few DI corps over the years, making semi-finals as a DII corps, when it was still only top 17.

I think there were several factors this year leading up to the results that occurred. In recent years, it has seemed like the 10-16 place corps have all been stellar, with solid shows. The fight for the last 2 finals spots have been extremely interesting. However this year the top 12 were set well in advance. There wasn't a show below 12th that would have deserved to make finals. There should have been close to a 2 point gap between 12th and 13th. However with a weird 1 point penalty, it made the competition look much closer than it really was.

13th-18th place corps this year had nice shows, but nowhere near the level of years past. Colts were definitely the best of this group, but even they had strong weaknesses this year. I did think after an extremely slow start, that Spirit probably still should have ended up 14th, with BDB getting 15th. I think with the strong program BDB had this year, along with the weakened 13-17 shows from normal, really changed the game. I am sure it did sting for some of the corps that dropped a spot or two. But I really thought the judges got it right with BDB and Vanguard Cadets. They are not your average feeder/Open Class corps. And that whole group of BDB, SCVC, Academy, Troopers, Pacific Crest, and Oregon Crusaders, were very close to being on the same level, with each corps having some really strong areas, but also having some weak areas as well.

Hopefully this will light a fire under some designers, staff, and members of all of these corps, and make an even more exciting 2015 season. Congrats to BDB for their best placement ever, and best of luck in the future. Who knows, maybe in the next couple of years there will be 5 Blue corps making finals.

[N.E. Brigand]

Well, since there appear to be no penalties even when someone deviates from the allotted time, then Pioneer/Cascades appear to have that option available.

And of course, that gets right to the question: is DCI treating World Class corps differently from Open Class corps as requires show length requirements?

I'm surprised this subject wasn't raised during the previous three years when Open Class corps at Prelims were being scored on World Class sheets, but as often as was the case this year, had short shows. Someone should do the math to work out where O.C. corps with short shows for 2011-2014 really would have placed if this rule was enforced.

[N.E. Brigand]

Am I correct that, in addition to Blue Devils, Carolina Crown, and Crossmen earning the highest-ever Finals scores for first, fifth, and twelfth place respectively, two other corps earned the highest final (lowercase F) scores for their placements? Specifically:

17. 81.550 -- Spirit of Atlanta

20. 78.900 -- Pacific Crest

Scanning through CorpsReps, I can't see any other corps whose last 17th- or 20th-place scores were as high.

(Curiously, it looks like 1988 and 1977 were particularly good years for many final scores in placements of 13th or lower.)