GREG COTE'S RANDOM EVIDENCE BLOG: MIAMI. SPORTS. AND BEYOND
1) It's MONDAY, OCTOBER 11. Happy birthday to my big brother, the famous Uncle Dick! 2) Join me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Follow the Greg Cote Show podcast separately on Twitter, Instagram and now TikTok, too! 3) In The Previous Blogpost (ITPB): NFL Week 5 picks, Too soon and dumb to quit on Tua, Fins and Canes' woes make this year of reckoning, Week 4 results for Picks/Greg's Lobos/QB Rankings, Greg Cote Show podcast & more.
GREG COTE SHOW PODCAST: NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!: Our 39th episode of 2021 and 81st overall is out Monday! New pod drops every Monday at 7 ET on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, Stitcher, Megaphone, iHeart -- wherever you pod, and of course at MiamiHerald.com. You can find all 81 we've done HERE, free. In our new episode, we bring you inside Saturday night's Dan Le Batard celebrity roast at the Hard Rock. We roast the roast, bringing you the best and worst of it. Also in the new pod: We chew over the Dolphins' ugly loss in Tampa, give you a Greg's Lobos update, chat Marlins with Jordan McPherson and much more! Thanks as always for the support, pod family. Please listen, rate, review and follow. (Our pod simulcasts on Sirius XM every Monday 5-6 p.m. ET).
Dolphins get clobbered in Tampa. My column: Loss In Tampa Has Dolphins Season In Free Fall As Embarrassments Pile Up.
NFL Week 5 picks: Rough go last week but we did hit our fourth straight bull's-eye for a perfect 4-0 mark on Upset of the Week picks. Now we turn to Week 5 and picks for Dolphins-Bucs, Bills-Chiefs, Game of Week, Upset of Week and all the rest: NFL Week 5 Gems.
Our most recent columns: Why It's Too Soon, And Dumb, To Quit On Tua As Dolphins Answer / Year Of Reckoning, And Impatience, For Slow-Starting Dolphins & Canes / With Ghosts Of Glory Days Watching, Dolphins Showed Inept Effort in Third Straight Loss / Dolphins Fans, Ex-Players Gather For Emotional Farewell to Don Shula, Father of the Glory Days / Unlucky, But Heat on Manny Diaz Rises With Home Loss In ACC Opener / If Sports Had A Spine, Kyrie Irving & Other Anti-Vaxxers Wouldn't Be Playing / Kyle Lowry Must Channel 'Doctor Of Greatness' If Heat Is To Chase NBA Title / Fairy Tale With Wrong Ending: Remembering Jose Fernandez 5 Years Later / Tua's Rib Injury In Keeping With Weird, Rocky Start to Dolphins Career / Hope And Hype Are Sky-High. Time For Florida Panthers To Finally Deliver.
HOT BUTTON TOP 10 (OCTOBER 10-11): WHAT SOUTH FLORIDA SPORTS FANS ARE TALKING ABOUT: Our blog-exclusive Sunday-into-Monday feature is part week-in-review, part look-ahead. Hot Button means what's on our minds, locally and nationally, from a Miami perspective, as the sports week just past pivots to the week ahead. This week's HB10:
1. DOLPHINS: Season in free fall with 45-17 loss, 1-4 record: The Fins are now 1-4 after a 45-17 loss in Tampa Sunday -- a fourth straight defeat. Tom Brady wth five TD passes had his way and both offense and defense collapsed. Answers, Brian Flores. Pronto, por favor?
2. PANTHERS: It's Opening Week as Cats lock up Barkov long-term!: After a 5-2 preseason now done, the Panthers open their 28th NHL season at home in Sunrise this Thursday vs. Pittsburgh. It's a season of extraordinarily high hopes for Florida, buoyed this week by the Cats extending star Aleksander Barkov, 26, with an eight-year, $80 million deal -- richest in franchise history.
3. COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Wait. What!? Alabama loses!: The College Football Playoff picture got shook up Saturday, starting with No. 1 Alabama losing 41-38 to Texas A&M. Also notabe: 2-Georgia beat No. 18 Auburn 34-10, and 3-Iowa State beat 4-Penn State 23-20. In other Top 25 matchups: 6-Oklahoma beat 21-Texas 55-48, and 17-Ole Miss topped 13-Arkansas 52-51.
4. MLB: Red Sox, Astros lead; both NL Division Series tied: With Yanks and Cards dismissed as wild-card losers, the real playoffs are underway with the final eight teams split into two five-game AL and NL Division Series. AL: Red Sox lead Rays 2-1 and Astros lead White Sox 2-1. NL: Brewers and Braves are 1-1 and Giants and Dodgers 1-1. All four series play Monday. Dodgers and Astros were 1-2 as betting favorites to win it all.
5. HEAT: Herro, new-look Miami 3-0 in preseason: The new-look Heat -- Kyle Lowry joining Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo in a new Big 3 -- is 3-0 halfway through a six-game preseason schedule. Tyler Herro totaled 76 points in first three games. Miami's final exhibition games are Monday, Thursday and Friday, then regular season opens October 21 at home vs. Milwaukee.
6. HURRICANES: Idle UM, Diaz gird for big -- and perilous -- stretch of schedule: The heat is on coach Manny Diaz with Miami, off this week, 2-3 as it prepares for three lose-able games in a row. Canes are small underdogs at North Carolina on October 16, then host a ranked (No. 23) N.C. State, then will likely be underdogs visiting Pitt. Not predicting it, but if UM is 2-6 come Halloween, Diaz could be gone.
7. INTER MIAMI: Fading Herons lose 5th straight: Miami is 9-5-14, with five straight losses and now eight points off MLS playoff pace with only four matches left after Saturday's 1-nil loss at New York Red Bulls. Done.
8. STATE COLLEGES (NON-UM): Gators win to top state slate: Florida Gators tumbled 10 spots to No. 20 after last week's humbling loss to Kentucky but bounced back Saturday in the Swamp, beating Vanderbilt, 42-0. Elsewhere on the FBS state schedule, non-UM division: Charlotte beat FIU 45-33, FAU beat UAB 14-0, Florida State beat North Carolina 35-25 and UCF beat East Carolina 20-16. South Florida joins UM as idle.
9. MARLINS: Fish hint at offseason spending for offense: The Marlins, after a disappointing 67-95 season full of promising pitching and bad bats, are feeding the media hints about big spending for offense in the coming offseason. OK. Good talk. Now let's wait to see it.
10. WNBA: Chicago wins opener as Finals underway: The Chicago Sky and Candace Parker are up 1-0 on the Phoenix Mercury led by Brittney Griner in the best-of-5 WNBA Finals after winning Sunday. It's the league's 25th Finals. Phoenix has won three championships, the last in 2014. Chicago is seeking its first title.
Missing the HB10 cut: Heat broadcaster Jason Jackson's Jax Celebrity Roast IV honored targeted Dan Le Batard on Saturday night at the Hard Rock ..... Tyson Fury KO'd Deontay Wilder in the 11th round of their WBC heavyweight title bout Saturday night in Vegas. Their previous bouts were a split-draw Fury win ..... Bills-Chiefs. BILLS-CHIEFS! ..... Bubba Wallace became only the second Black driver to win a main-race event in NASCAR and the first since 1963. Sunday at Charlotte is the sixth race in the 10-race playoffs ..... The NWSL sex-abuse scandal overshadows the season as the league moves within a month of its playoffs ..... Only six of 32 teams in the UEFA Champions League are 2-0-0 after two matches, including giants Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Juventus. Play resumed October 19 ..... Eighteen former NBA players are charged with pocketing $2.5 million by defrauding the league's health and welfare benefit plan. That averages to about $140,000 each. Was it worth it, guys? ..... Bronny James, 16, son of LeBron was in Miami this weekend participating in a showcase event at Florida Memorial University ..... The Greg Cote Show podcast is back with a new episode Monday at 7 a.m. ET ..... Update: Countdown now 1,723 days (give or take) until Miami hosts its first match in soccer's 2026 World Cup.
xxx
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ARCHIVES
Select other recent columns: Miami Herald's 2021 NFL Team Rankings: You Won't Believe Where Dolphins are / Why Dolphins, Canes Should Be Taking Lead In Requiring Fans To Be COVID-Vaccinated / An Appreciation of Udonis Haslem As He Re-Ups For 19th Heat Season / Unraveled: The Story Behind Who Aubrey Huff Became / College Football and FSU Lose a Treasure In Passing Of Bobby Bowden / Biggest Victory Of Hall Of Famer Jimmy Johnson's Life Was Getting His Son Back / Biles' Withdrawal For Mental-Health Reasons Merits Empathy, Not Scorn / Where Dolphins Rank Among Teams With Longest Championship Droughts / Dolphins Owner Ross Unveils New $135 Million Training Site As Another Reason Team Must Win Now / Hot Seat Scale: Ranking Miami's Biggest Coaches By Most to Least Job Security / May Sha'Carri Richardson Be Last Victim Of Olympics' Archaic Marijuana Rules / 'I'm D'Eriq King For College Hunks Hauling Junk!' It's Strange New World in College Sports / Nassib Coming Out As Gay NFL Player A Milestone In Sports History / Fate Snatched Basketball From Chris Bosh. His new Book Is Part of His Journey Of Healing / Where's Tua? Ranking Our Top 15 South Florida Pro Athletes 25 And Younger / Pythons, Peppers, Pirate Flag Raised. Inside Le Batard's 24-Hour Triumph / Le Batard Bet On Himself And His Audience -- And Won Big / Justice For George Floyd Helps Heal Our Shaken Faith, But Fight For Equality Goes On / What Would Jackie Robinson Think About Race In America Today? / In History And In Hearts, Howard Schnellenberger Will Matter For All Time / Women Keep Accusing Deshaun Watson of Sexual Misconduct. But Will It Matter to NFL Teams? / Reality, Loss, Comeback: How Sports Has Been Guiding Light In America's Awful Past Year / Beckham's Resolve Tested By Tumult As Inter Miami Nears 2nd MLS Season / Time-Travelling To 1960s And Childhood, When The Baseball Card Was King / Doesn't Matter If Tiger Woods Never Wins Again. We Are Lucky He's Alive / Final Herald NFL 2020 QB Rankings / Marlins Hit History-Making Home Run With Kim NG Hire As GM / In a Pandemic-Battered Season For FIU, Butch Davis' Love Of Coaching Survives / Don Shula, 1930-2020, R.I.P. / What Shula Meant to a Father & Son. The Boy Was Me.
Revisit this blog often because it updates regularly. The Associated Press Sports Editors writing awards ranked the blog's author a Top 10 national sports columnist in the major-outlet category. Greg is also a regular on the Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz.
Finding Greg: Twitter. Instagram. Facebook. Columns. Podcast. Podcast on Twitter. Podcast on Instagram. LeBatard Show. Book: Fins At 50. Songs: Letting Go (audio only) and The Ballad Of 1440 (with video).
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