Since the day we released our inaugural preseason top 15 HBCU band poll last week, many folks have taken to social media to express their thoughts about our rankings.
Unsurprisingly, the comments made about our rankings varied; ranging from those who completely approved of the rankings, and even taking the time to officially acknowledge them, to some going so far as to simply call the rankings “BS”.
And that’s OK.
Because the rankings were only limited to 15 bands, it was understood that some very deserving bands were going to be left off of the list. We’ll even admit that the list was supposed to include 25 bands at first, but we reduced it to 15 just make things a little more interesting.
Conference Breakdown
Of the 15 schools that made the list of best HBCU bands in America, six are members of the SWAC. The MEAC had four schools listed, with the SIAC, GCAC and OVC each being represented by one. The CIAA was the lone conference not to be represented.
Since HBCU Sports has already published our list of the top 15 bands in America, we’ve also decided to publish our preseason band rankings for the CIAA, SIAC, MEAC and SWAC conferences from top to bottom.
CIAA
- Shaw
- Virginia State
- Livingstone
- Winston-Salem State
- Bowie State
- Saint Augustine’s
- Johnson C. Smith
- Elizabeth City State
- Virginia Union
- Fayetteville State
- Lincoln U. (Pa.)
SIAC
- Miles
- Albany State
- Morehouse
- Tuskegee
- Fort Valley State
- Kentucky State
- Benedict
- Central State
- Stillman
- Clark-Atlanta
- Lane
MEAC
- North Carolina A&T
- Bethune-Cookman
- South Carolina State
- Florida A&M
- Morgan State
- Howard
- Norfolk State
- North Carolina Central
- Hampton
- Delaware State
- Savannah State
SWAC
- Southern
- Jackson State
- Texas Southern
- Alabama A&M
- Alabama State
- Grambling
- Alcorn State
- Arkansas-Pine Bluff
- Prairie View A&M
- Mississippi Valley State
Now it’s your time to vote
We are sure some will disagree with our rankings. And we’d like to survey our readers – the “band experts” – to get input on how they’d rank each HBCU marching band within their respective conferences. So take a moment to participate in our survey created for each conference.
CIAA
SIAC
MEAC
SWAC
We will publish the results on Tuesday, Sept. 1.
The Rankings Look to be right..
Aggies do
for me, it has to be the FAMU Marching “100” http://themarching100.com/
This is awesome, great comments, I am so thrilled that nearly 40 years after I marched with the “MARCHING 110”, VIRGINIA STATE COLLEGE, we can even TALK about HBCUs. WE ARE STILL HERE! Keep the tradition alive! !!!!
The mighty Golden Bears of Miles College.
SWAC’s ratings suck! SU first? TSU in the top 3? YUCK!
And how in the hell is PV so low???
Thunder
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Virginia Union with three Tuba’s ranked ahead of Lincoln and Fayetteville State? Bogus poll as far as I am concerned.
It’s 6 tubas not 3.