Curious what years you’re considering false positives. I arbitrarily went back to 2002. Here are the times they’ve started 3-1 or 4-0:
2007: 3-1 (ended with a trip to the Rose Bowl)
2011 4-0 (wins over 10-3 Arkansas St., S Dak State, 6-7 Arizona State (ranked #22 when we faced them—maybe this year’s Kansas W winds up looking similar when the dust settles), and 6-7 Northwestern
2013 3-1 (SIU, 9-4 Cincinnati, and 0-12 Miami Ohio)
2014 3-1 (Youngstown State, 8-5 Kentucky, 7-5 Tx State)
2015 3-1 (3-9 Kent State, Western Illinois, 7-6 Middle Tennessee State)
2022 3-1 (finished 8-5, should’ve been 9-4…still not over the loss to Michigan
So, it’s been mostly true negatives, two seasons I’d consider positive results, one false positive in 2011, and a few seasons of taking care of business against early season patsies.