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THE RUNDOWN
- Spoiler alert! Emily Awbrey has officially made it onto the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader 2026 team.
- Awbrey was a favourite in the third season of the Netflix show, with team director Kelli Finglass urging her to return for a second year.
I’ll assume that, by now, you’ve already worked your way through the third season of America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders on Netflix (or, like me, binge-watched it in a single day), one name has likely lodged itself firmly in your head: Emily Awbrey.
The Oregon native was affectionately nicknamed “Emo-ly” by fans of the show and she quickly became one of the breakout figures of season three. Widely regarded as the strongest technical dancer in the audition pool, she earned near-universal praise from DCC director Kelli Finglass and head choreographer Judy Trammell, with Finglass calling her one of the best dance technicians she’d seen across the entire audition process.
Related: Reece Weaver Is Entering Her Post-DCC Era — Here’s What She’s Doing Now
In the end, she didn’t make the cut for the 2025 season, which came as somewhat of a shock to fans who noted the parallels between fellow rookie DCC hopeful Faith Ward, the Australian ponytail-wearing DCC recruit, and Awbrey. They both had very similar struggles in the process, coming from near-identical backgrounds of dancing on cruise ships and having a more technical, and less out-there style of dancing that’s required for DCC. The confusing thing for fans was that Ward did make the team, while Awbrey was eventually let go.
But, as is customary, training camp for the 2026 season has once again coincided with the show’s release, which means we knew right away that Awbrey had returned as a comeback girl hoping to earn her spot on the team. But did she? Well, now we finally know!
Spoilers ahead for the next season of DCC. If you like the final team to be a surprise, stop reading now.
Did Emily Awbrey Make The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Team In 2026?
She did! On July 17, Awbrey posted a video to her Instagram account showing screen recordings of the moments she told her family she made the DCC team. “No words can describe this feeling,” she wrote in a caption. “All I can think to say for now- Thank you
Man i’m blessed.” Of course, Ward was quick to comment her support on her friend’s post, writing, “I love this and you so much 
.”
Of course, we’ll need to wait for the next season to find out exactly what happened when she returned to Dallas to try out for the team as a comeback girl.
Why Didn’t Emily Awbrey Make The 2025 DCC Team?
Emily’s undoing at the 2025-26 training camp came down to style, not skill, in the end. The DCC’s high-energy pom technique is a world away from the ballet, contemporary, and cruise ship performance work that shaped her training, and despite surviving two rounds of cuts, she was eliminated in the third — an especially gutting moment given it came after makeovers and uniform fittings. As she left, Finglass made is clear that not only did she want Emily to return this year to audition again, but that she would be disappointed if she didn’t.
In Finglass’ opinion, Awbrey just needed a little bit more time with the dancing style and choreography to fully acclimate to the DCC way before making the team. Then,as the third season of the documentary-style show was released on Netflix, Ward confirmed that Awbrey had returned to audition and had once again made it successfully through to training camp.
In the video posted to Ward’s Instagram account, she is dancing around a bathroom with Awbrey with the words “how it feels to be back with bestie” over top. The caption reads, “Emo & Aussie are back 
”.
It seems, after returning to her mother’s dance studio in Grants Pass to teach, Awbrey spent months brushing up on the DCC style. Eventually, she submitted a new audition video in March, and of course, made it through finals again in June, and eventually onto the team.
The post Emily Awbrey Is Officially Back At DCC Training Camp But Did She Make The Team? appeared first on ELLE.
