I just think a lot of Tech fans are remembering too much what our defense looked like against Arkansas and the second half against UTEP (when their by-far best player, their RB, was out) and not enough what it looked like against Sam Houston (gave up 45 points and 637 yards) and the first half against UTEP (RB had 139 yards before getting injured).
We've definitely looked better as the season has gone on, and not having Pete Robertson for that SHSU game looks to have been a bigger deal than we thought it would be at the time, but it seems like a lot of Tech fans are super confident about this game because of TCU's defensive personnel woes while forgetting that statistically they're still doing far better than our own defense is thus far.