Steve Mask has coached 89 games at St. Paul’s E.E. Delaney Stadium in Mobile.

On Friday night, he’ll patrol the visiting sidelines for the first time.

Mask, who led the Saints to four state titles over a decade as head coach, returns to St. Paul’s for the first time in two years as his Theodore Bobcats take on the Saints in a battle for 6A playoff positioning.

“There will be a lot of emotions I’m sure involved,” Mask said. “I’m grateful for my time there. I made a lot of long-lasting friendships and relationships. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little emotional thinking about it. But I’m very happy and content to be a Theodore Bobcat, and I look forward to a long relationship here.”

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Mask spent three years as defensive coordinator for Jimmy Perry at St. Paul’s before taking over as head coach for the 2012 season. He went 110-25 as the head coach, winning state titles in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2020. He resigned following the 2021 season and spent a year as head coach at Pell City before accepting the Theodore job last winter.

In 2019, Mask hired Ham Barnett away from Theodore to be his defensive coordinator at St. Paul’s. Barnett was promoted to head coach when Mask left and has a 14-8 record with one regular-season game and then the playoffs remaining in his second season at the helm.

“He’s been a big influence for me, especially in my coaching career,” Barnett said of Mask. “I’m always thankful for that. We haven’t talked about it (Mask’s return) with the players. We’ve just focused on the significance of this game. The weather has finally cooled off. We’ve had a playoff atmosphere at practice. We are just concentrating on playing our game and trying to be the best version of ourselves on Friday night.”

The game is significant for the playoff picture.

Both teams are 5-2 in Region 1 entering the regular-season finale. The winner of Friday’s game earns the No. 3 seed and a trip to Hueytown (6-3) for the first round. The loser will be the 4 and travel to No. 3-ranked Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa (10-0).

“In the grand scheme of things, we are treating this as a playoff game,” Mask said. “There is no easy route to win a state championship, but seeding is important. You also certainly don’t want to go into the playoffs with two straight losses if you can help it. We want to get on the right track and be in the mindset of making a run.”

Theodore (6-3) is coming off a 42-13 loss at No. 1-ranked Saraland last week, snapping a three-game Bobcat winning streak.

“On Sunday afternoon, we talked at great length about what happened and what didn’t happen,” Mask said of the loss. “I think the kids know we played a really good team, and we didn’t play great. You can either dwell on it or go and do something about it.”

St. Paul’s (7-2) has won three straight games and five of its last six. The Saints are coming off a 44-25 win over Baldwin County in Week 10.

“I feel like we are playing better football than we have played all year,” Barnett said. “That goes for both sides of the ball and special teams. I’m excited to see what we can do on Friday night.”

Both teams will enter the game with the mindset to run the football and play tough defense. It likely be a similar philosophy to last year’s two games, both of which were at Theodore and won by the Bobcats.

“They do a lot of good things offensively,” Barnett said of the Bobcats. “They like to run like we do. They play really good defense like we try to do. I think it will be a slugfest.

“Our mindset going in is a little different this year. Last year, they were really physical, and we talked about it a lot. We aren’t talking about it as much this year. We have just used the mindset that this is a playoff game that we need to win. Now, they are still physical and fast, but I think we have gotten more physical this year, and I think we have more speed than we did a year ago.”

Mask agreed there are similarities between the teams.

“We both have really hung our hats on the defensive side and running the ball,” he said. “I think both teams have solid kicking games. We want to go in and try to take care of business and come out healthy. The only thing we can control is ourselves.”

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. Friday.