Houston ? Craig Candeto and his fellow Midshipmen truly are happy to be here.

The senior quarterback doesn’t care that the 4-year-old Houston Bowl isn’t one of the most esteemed postseason destinations, a fact borne out by today’s afternoon kickoff.

He’s simply thrilled Navy reached any bowl game after three of the lowest years in the program’s history.

“It was pretty terrible, but to come out this year and go 8-4 and find ourselves in a bowl game, I don’t know anyone would have imagined it,” Candeto said Monday as he prepared for his final collegiate game, against Texas Tech, before beginning his service commitment.

Awful doesn’t describe where Navy was in Candeto’s other seasons. The Mids won once in 2000 — at least it was against rival Army — then lost all 10 games the next season, costing coach Charlie Weatherbie his job.

Weatherbie’s first offensive coordinator at Navy, Paul Johnson, returned to lead the program last year and got off to a bumpy start at 2-10. The turnaround this year was dramatic, punctuated by a 28-25 defeat of Air Force for the Mids’ first win over a ranked team since 1985.

Their postseason berth is the first since Johnson’s offense paced a 42-38 victory over Cal in the 1996 Aloha Bowl. The oldest Navy players were in diapers for the academy’s last bowl trip before that, in 1981.

Again riding Johnson’s run-oriented triple-option offense that led the nation with 326 yards rushing per game, the Mids set three goals for this season: a winning record, the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy for the best head-to-head record among the three service academies, and a bowl berth.

“This group has accomplished all three of those things,” Johnson said.

Actually winning the bowl game might be another thing entirely. Navy hasn’t seen anything like the aerial circus of Tech (7-5), which led the nation averaging 474 yards passing using a complicated barrage of short passes.

The quarterback at the controls is Houston-area native B.J. Symons, a senior who waited patiently behind former Tech star Kliff Kingsbury to finish his career last year, then made the most of his opportunity by throwing for a Division I-A record 5,336 yards this season.

Symons, suiting up for his fourth bowl game, isn’t just happy to be back home.

“We’re not just here to play a game and take part in the bowl festivities,” Symons said. “We’re looking forward to winning the game and hopefully winning big.”

Tech’s Achilles’ heel is its defense, one of the most porous in college football.

Navy, conversely, was among the nation’s best at stopping the pass but only played one team that threw regularly, holding Tulane and J.P. Losman to 198 yards passing.