Ace Anbender, Taylor Fulton, and guest Ryan Donnelly discuss the best players in the Big Ten West, the most Midwestern division in college athletics.

Welcome to The Bucket Problem! If you’re new to the show, we cover Michigan athletics with our small gang of experts: me (Ace Anbender, formerly of MGoBlog), fellow Meet at Midfielder Taylor Fulton, and regular co-hosts Alex Cook, Connor Southard, and Dan (aka Thicc Stauskas).

Meet at Midfield and Flipping the Field’s Ryan Donnelly joins this week’s free episode to discuss the new project and our choices for the top five football players in the Big Ten West. There are only two players on both Ace’s and Taylor’s lists. Ryan critiques the TBP crew’s choices and adds several players to watch of his own.

Topics:

• Ace gets the episode number wrong, fails to notice.
• Meet at Midfield! What is it, other than a non-government entity promoting Big Ten supremacy? (That’s all it is).
• Read Taylor’s post!
• Is Jim Harbaugh behind the new avian flu?
• What on earth is happening with the U-M hockey program?
• Please sponsor us, WilmerHale. We know you have the money.
• Warde Manuel is not controlling the narrative.
• We mention Chez Mellusi, as is contractually required. Is he real, though? (He is not.)
• Champaign-Urbana: The reviews are in, and they’re terrible.