View a complete recap of scores from Murfreesboro.
As a reminder: When reading about scoring recaps, please be aware that General Effect (GE) Visual and GE Music are the only two captions that are not divided in half prior to their addition to the final score. When listing those other caption scores, the undivided score is presented first, followed by a slash and the divided score that is added to the total score for each corps. The Murfreesboro show utilized a 9-judge panel, without doubling the Effect captions. There were two Percussion judges, one in the stands and one on the field. Those two scores were averaged for the total Percussion score. Blue Devils (1st, 94.475) continued to dominate the field with a 1.2 spread over the Cavaliers, slightly tighter than the 1.4 spread in San Antonio. More interesting is the spread over Phantom Regiment, which was 2.6 in San Antonio (when Phantom ended in 4th) and 1.275 in Murfreesboro (when Phantom moved up one spot overall). This represented a 1.325 shrinking of the gap between BD and Phantom. Much of this was due to Phantom's combined Effect score of 38.0, up by 2.45 points since San Antonio, rising from 5th (1.5 under BD) to 2nd (0.3 under BD). Blue Devils took 1st in Effect Visual, 0.3 over the 2nd place Cavaliers in that caption, and 2nd in Effect Music, 0.2 under Phantom's 1st place score, but 0.7 over the Cavaliers' 4th place score. (The Cavaliers were 0.15 under BD in Effect Music in San Antonio.) That gave the Devils a 0.9 advantage over the Cavaliers in total Effect. BD was 0.1 under the Cavaliers in Visual Performance, but won both Visual Ensemble and Color Guard, the latter caption finishing 0.5/0.25 over the Cavaliers' guard. Considering that Phantom's total score was only 1.275 from the Blue Devils's total score, the 1.5 advantage by BD in total Visual (the combination of the three Visual captions) over Phantom's 5th place total Visual score is significant, whereas the Devils's total Visual spread over the Cavaliers was only 0.25. Perhaps most intriguing was BD's 4th place finish in overall Music, 0.525 under the 1st place Phantom Regiment in that caption. Brass, though 3rd, ended just 0.2/0.1 under Phantom Regiment. Music Ensemble, also 3rd, finished under 1st place Phantom Regiment by the same spread. BD's Percussion tied for 4th, 0.65/0.325 under 1st place Phantom and 0.4/0.2 under the 2nd place Cavaliers. Bluecoats' Percussion was 3rd, just 0.05/0.025 above. Therefore, the big upside for Blue Devils in Murfreesboro was the sizeable 0.9 advantage in total Effect over their nearest competitor, the Cavaliers. Their biggest deficit was coming in 4th place in total Music. But since that 4th place finish was still within 0.525 of Phantom's 1st place Music score, and since BD's Effect score was 1.5 points over Phantom, the Blue Devils enjoyed a 1.2 point advantage over the Cavaliers and a 1.275 point advantage over Phantom Regiment. Overall, the corps placed 1st on the sheets of three of the nine judges.
The Cavaliers (2nd, 93.725) took 1st in Visual Performance by 0.1/0.05 over Blue Devils, the only caption the corps won. Their 3rd place finish in total Effect was largely due to placing 4th in Effect Music, 0.9 down to Phantom Regiment's 1st place score, 0.7 under Blue Devils and 0.3 under Carolina Crown. Combined with a 0.3 deficit to BD in Effect Visual – still good for 2nd in that caption – the corps finished 3rd in total Effect. Their total Effect score was 0.7 under Phantom and 1.0 under BD, and this accounts for all but 0.2 of the corps' overall deficit to Blue Devils in total score. The Green Machine placed 2nd in Visual Ensemble to BD and 3rd in Color Guard, beneath Crown by 0.2/0.1 and BD by 0.5/0.25, and finishing under BD in total Visual by 0.25. The Cavaliers took 2nd in total Music on the basis of a strong 2nd place Percussion score, 0.25 under Phantom's drum line and 0.4/0.2 over BD's line. The corps was 4th in both Brass and Music Ensemble, 0.4/0.2 under Phantom in Brass and 0.3/0.15 under Phantom in Music Ensemble.
Phantom Regiment (3rd, 93.200) advanced ahead of Carolina Crown, largely due to a 0.8 spread over Crown in total Effect. This is a switch in their placements from San Antonio, where Phantom was down in Effect by 0.5, an overall reversal in Effect of 1.3. In San Antonio, Crown held a 0.65 lead in Effect Visual. In Murfreesboro, Phantom reversed that and took a 0.3 lead, accounting for much of the 0.575 spread over Crown in overall score. The 1st place finish in Effect Music and 2nd place in Effect Visual put Phantom 0.3 under Blue Devils and 0.7 above the Cavaliers in total Effect. Combined with the three Music captions, Phantom won four captions, one more than Blue Devils. The corps' biggest strength came in a sweep of all three Music captions after finishing 3rd in Brass and Music Ensemble in San Antonio, giving Phantom a 0.475 lead over the Cavaliers in total Music, up from the 0.1 lead the corps had six days earlier. In San Antonio, Phantom tied for 4th in total Visual. In Murfreesboro, the corps placed 5th in total Visual (1.5 down to Blue Devils) and in all three Visual captions. Visual Performance finished 1.4/0.7 under the Cavaliers' winning score and 1.3/0.65 under BD's 2nd place score. A 0.7/0.35 deficit to BD in Visual Ensemble and a 1.0/0.5 deficit in Color Guard to BD accounted for much of the spread between the two corps in total Visual. Despite falling from 3rd in total Effect in San Antonio to 4th in Murfreesboro,
Carolina Crown (4th, 92.635) opened up just an additional 0.1 in the total Effect spread between itself and Blue Devils, 1.1 down to the Concord corps. Crown was 4th in Effect Visual, finishing 0.3 under Phantom Regiment after being up by 0.65 in San Antonio. After finishing 0.15 behind Phantom in Effect Music in San Antonio, the corps slipped to 0.5 behind in Murfreesboro. The corps' 0.7 spread over Phantom in total Visual was due mostly to the 0.6/0.3 advantage in Visual Performance and the 0.7/0.35 spread in Color Guard, in which the corps placed 2nd. A 2nd place finish in total Music was courtesy of finishing a very close 2nd in both Brass and Music Ensemble, even though Crown's Percussion finished in 5th. Both Brass and Music Ensemble finished just 0.1/0.05 under Phantom, while Percussion was 0.75/0.375 down.
The Cadets (5th, 90.825) finished only 0.05 under Carolina Crown in total Visual, and despite placing 5th to Crown's 2nd place in total Music, finished only 0.35 under Crown in those combined three captions. That meant that the bulk of the corps' 1.8 deficit to Crown came in total Effect. The 0.3 deficit in Effect Visual was minor compared to the 1.1 spread in Effect Music. That was 0.8 greater than the spread between the two corps in that caption in San Antonio. The Cadets' 2.5 deficit to Blue Devils in total Effect was up from the 1.45 spread between the two corps in San Antonio. A 3rd place finish in Visual Ensemble and close 4th place finishes in Visual Performance and Color Guard accounted for that close finish to Crown in Visual, though overall, the corps' Visual scores were 0.85 down to Blue Devils. The Cadets' Percussion score was only 0.4/0.2 behind 2nd place Cavaliers' line. In San Antonio, the two lines had been separated by 0.9/0.45.
Bluecoats (6th, 88.200) took 3rd place in Percussion, 0.35/0.175 under the Cavaliers' 2nd place line. The Bluecoats finished 0.6/0.3 under Phantom Regiment's winning percussion line and opened up a 1.05/0.525 spread over Santa Clara Vanguard. The next highest captions were 6th place finishes in both Effect captions and Music Ensemble, with 7th place finishes in all three Visual captions and Brass. The corps maintained a 0.3 spread over Santa Clara Vanguard in both Effect captions. The Visual captions represented the corps' largest deficits to the Cadets, the 1.05 spread in total Visual opening up to 1.65 after finishing 1.0/0.5 down in Visual Performance, 1.3/0.65 down in Visual Ensemble and 1.0/0.5 down in Color Guard.
Santa Clara Vanguard (7th, 87.475) was 6th or 7th in every caption, the same as in San Antonio, although the corps and Bluecoats switched Effect caption placements from six days earlier. In doing so, SCV's 0.2 deficit to Bluecoats in total Effect in San Antonio opened up to a 0.6 spread in Murfreesboro. The 0.225 spread between the two corps in San Antonio opened up to a 0.725 spread in Murfreesboro. SCV was 6th in all Visual captions, plus Brass.
Blue Knights (8th, 84.400) placed 8th in every caption. The 1.75 total Effect spread between the corps and Santa Clara Vanguard in San Antonio closed up to a 0.7 spread in Murfreesboro and the corps also gained 0.65 on the Bluecoats in total Effect. A deficit of 0.7 to SCV in total Effect, 1.25 in total Visual and 1.125 in total Music accounted for the overall 3.075 spread between the two corps.