Melih's Thoughts » Sports betting

College Football – Review Week 4

Melih Onvural — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:16:35 +0000

First, you’re going to need to watch Saket’s review of week 4, and then watch my response embedded below:

Finally, my pick’em group shows that for last week I only got 7 out of 22 picks right last week. It was just… AWFUL! I think it was a function of the games being too unpredictable, but one thing I’ve noticed this year, which I spoke about in the video above, is that a lot of teams are much closer on any given Saturday than we have seen in years past. Outside of the Top 5 ,or as Saket said, the top 3, it’s really a crap shoot this year, and for a fan that’s just awesome! I wish every year were like this where any given Saturday is one you can’t miss.

I love college football.

College Football – Week 3

Melih Onvural — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:17:42 +0000

Join the weekly picks group at:

Link: http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/college
Group #: 28253
Password: Call me on TokBox to find out at http://www.tokbox.com/melih

A Quick Football Update

Melih Onvural — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:12:02 +0000

First week of the college football season is about to come to a close as the Miami/FSU game is about to start. I had a horrible week of gambling, but a really great time just watching the games. I got my parent’s Slingbox going to watch some East Coast games, and then ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 going locally to watch the rest. Some interesting first observations:

Not a fan of the defenseless receiver rule in practice, though I love it in theory. No one wants a player to get hurt, I don’t care how much you hate the other team. But this kind of rule feels so subjective, and it feels as if some really big games are going to be spun on a defenseless hit penalty, and it just frustrates me that the refs have that control
The ACC is a lot worse than I thought. I think the top of the ACC is competitive, but after the top four teams, this weekend was really disappointing. At least there’s basketball season…
I think the Big 12 lost some of its luster this season with the Sam Bradford injury. That said, Oklahoma State is a bit better than I had anticipated, and I don’t think Texas will be challenged too much this season given their schedule, and a likely Bradford out for the year
The Pac 10 is still boring whether you live on the West coast or the East coast.

Finally, I just wanted to throw out my results for this week, and I will update on Wednesday night my picks for this upcoming week (including a play on the Ohio State/Southern Cal game).

Oregon (+4) at Boise State => LOST
Akron at Penn State (-27) => LOST
BYU (+22.5) vs. Oklahoma (neutral site) => WON
Navy at Ohio State (-22) => LOST
Record: 1-3-0

College Football – Week 1

Melih Onvural — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:51:37 +0000

TokBox – Free Video Chat and Video Messaging

This Week’s Picks

Oregon (+4) at Boise State
Akron at Penn State (-27)
BYU (+22.5) vs. Oklahoma (neutral site)
Navy at Ohio State (-22)

Record: 0-0-0

A new series… Football Betting 2009

Melih Onvural — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:16:22 +0000

Our new CEO, Ian Small, made a point of making commitments to hard deadlines and hard actions, and then following up on those items when the time comes. I really like this sense of accountability. When you’re behind, then you need to be able to account for what went wrong. When you accomplish your goal, you are forced to stop and evaluate what you actually accomplished, and clearly define what’s coming next. It forces a level of maturity into the process. With that in mind, I’m announcing, just in time for the upcoming football season, that I will be starting a weekly video show where I will be going over the lines for a select set of NCAA and NFL games, and publishing my predictions on this blog. I will then, on the following Tuesday, publish my results as well as some analysis that I plan to build over the course of the season. I may also build an RoR application around all of the stats (as a way to learn the language and framework), but that’s getting slightly ahead of myself.

I will be using the Wednesday lines from SportsInteraction to make sure to include the Thursday night game. This could make things a bit more interesting for the NFL, and so I may need to do a follow up video if the games I pick have enough movement in either the lines or in injuries.

I’m really excited about this, as it allows me to do a bunch of things I enjoy all in one place. I’m going to use technology. I’m going to build out a full system to run it. I’m going to use visualization. I’m going to be gambling. And, I’m going to be bringing it all together with a video show. It’s going to be a blast, and it all starts this Wednesday (which is also my brother’s 20th birthday)!