Another football season is here. That means it’s time to start another year of the Public Action Report — my favorite little pet project. In a nutshell, every week we’re looking for line movement that make sense — a specific type of movement that indicates that a game is worth a closer look. Over the past few years the Public Action Report has done a very good job of picking out games to avoid and underdogs to back.

 It can be useful early in the season — as it hopefully will this week, but it generally gets more powerful and accurate as the seasons progress. I write ‘seasons’ because we look at both college football and NFL odds.

Before we get to the games that stand out this week let’s take a refresher course on what we are looking for here. We are looking at the percentage of bets that have been placed on each team in games. Sportsbooks won’t let people know how much has been bet on each side, but they will release the number of bets. We’re looking for situations in which at least 70 percent of bets have been placed on one team. Normally when the betting action is that lopsided we would expect the bookmakers to adjust the lines to make the more popular team less attractive in order to try to balance the action and limit their exposure as much as they can.

Sometimes, though, we’ll see situations in which the team that is more popular actually becomes more attractive to bettors — either a favorite’s line is adjusted so that they are giving fewer points, or an underdog takes more points. That’s contrary to logic, and it likely means one of two things — either a small number of smart bettors have bet big money on the less popular team and that has been enough to swing the line, or the books are comfortable with unbalanced action because they think that they are on the right side of the game. Either smart money or sportsbook confidence is a very good reason to take note of the team that is getting less action.

It’s important to note that this report isn’t meant to identify games that you should be betting blindly. It merely identifies games you should take a closer look at. If you were intending to bet the more popular team then you might want to take a closer look to make sure you are comfortable with your bet. If you were undecided on the game then you might want to look closer at the less popular team.

Without further ado, here are the games for this week. The NFL hasn’t provided any games to look at this week, but there are five from the college ranks that are very interesting:

Iowa (-6) at Iowa State (Saturday, Sept 10, 12 p.m. ET)

Not surprisingly given the sorry state of the Iowa State program and the reasonable success of the Hawkeyes, the bets are heavily skewed towards Iowa — they have drawn 85 percent of bets. Despite that, though, the line opened at a touchdown and has dropped to six points.

One thing you’ll hear over and over again in this report is the significance of a game that moves off or through a key number. Key numbers are so significant in sports betting that books are very hesitant to move off or through them — they’ll only do it when they have a good reason for it.

When only 15 percent of bets have been on Iowa State yet the line has moved off the key number of seven then you know they have a very good reason to not be afraid of the Hawkeyes here. That’s very interesting in my eyes.

Toledo (+18) at Ohio State (Saturday, Sept. 10, 12 p.m. ET)

The Buckeyes opened as 20.5-point favorites here, but the line has dropped nearly a field goal despite more than 80 percent of bets having been placed on the Buckeyes. Ohio State looked strong in their opener but given the adversity and uncertainty they have faced it would be easy to be concerned that they rode their adrenaline in the opener and could be faced with more reality in this one.

Toledo is worth a look.

Tulsa (-12) at Tulane (Saturday, Sept. 10, 3:30 p.m. ET)

Tulsa has drawn more than three-quarters of bets, yet the line opened at 15 and has moved through the key number of 14 to 12.

Tulsa is well regarded this year in C-USA, but they are coming off a frustrating destruction at the hands of Oklahoma, they are adapting to a new head coach, and though their offense is potent their defense last year was atrocious and didn’t show clear signs of improvement in the opener.

Tulane is showing some signs of life, so they should be worth a look here.

Alabama (-10) at Penn State (Saturday, Sept. 10, 3:30 p.m. ET)

This is a small move — from 10.5 to 10 — but it is still significant because of how it has happened.

Not surprisingly, the very public Alabama squad has drawn more than 80 percent of bets against a Penn State team with clear QB troubles. Despite that the line has dropped.

While Alabama is clearly and obviously the better team here, this line movement is a clear sign that there are educated people out there who believe that Alabama is overrated according to this line and that the Nittany Lions are worth a look.

TCU (-1) at Air Force (Saturday, Sept.10, 3:30 p.m. ET)

This line is not huge or particularly significant — from -2 to -1 — but it is still notable given that TCU is a fairly public team and they have drawn nearly 85 percent of bets.

What this movement tells me is that there are a number of smart bettors out there who don’t believe that TCU’s problems against Baylor were a fluke.

While they still have a lot of talent and exceptional coaching they have had to rebuild after losing so many key players, and it’s going to take time to smooth out the rough edges. That means that Air Force is worth a look here.