THOMASVILLE — Former Valdosta High football player Reginald Mitchell, now the head coach at Albany High, will be the head coach for the Georgia team in the 2009 Florida/Georgia Border War Senior Bowl on Saturday.

The Florida/Georgia Border War is a football game matching players from southwestern Georgia against players from the Big Bend section of the Florida panhandle. This year’s game will be played at The Jackets’ Nest in Thomasville at 2 p.m. Saturday.

Mitchell is in his third season as the head coach at Albany. Before taking over the Indians in 2006, Mitchell had been an assistant coach at Morgan State and Savannah State on the college level and Brunswick High and Dougherty High on the prep level. Mitchell was also a coaching intern with the Baltimore Ravens in 2000, when they won the Super Bowl.

Mitchell played on state championship teams at Valdosta in 1989 and 1990, under legendary head coach Nick Hyder. He then went on to play for Fort Valley State (another school nicknamed the Wildcats). Later, he returned to Valdosta and was an assistant coach at the middle school level.

The Georgia team’s players come from the southwestern part of the state, no further east than Thomasville or Sylvester, so there will not be any players from the Valdosta area competing in the game. Most come from either the Thomasville area or the Albany area.