Georgia Tech and Kentucky’s TaxSlayer Bowl was surprisingly heated

Leave it to Paul Johnson to engineer this level of ruckus during a relatively meaningless TaxSlayer Bowl game against Kentucky, which the Jackets won 33-18.

Things started off chippy, with Johnson and Kentucky’s Mark Stoops jawing in the middle of the field during the first quarter after a Wildcats player went down injured.

At issue: whether these were cut blocks or chop blocks. There’s a big difference. The former is a legal block below the waist. An illegal chop block is a low block against a defender who’s already being blocked up high by somebody else. This is an endless debate when it comes to run-option offenses like Johnson’s.

Pretty much every opposing coach hates the way Johnson’s teams block the option attack, so Stoops isn’t rare here. One of the plays was borderline in dirtiness, and dirtiness is typically in the eye of the beholder anyway, but this one could’ve perhaps been flagged.

But Stoops is (rightfully so) always going to protect his guys; he’s their coach of course.

Stoops was justifiably pretty upset about this:

And he got his money’s worth from the refs at halftime as well.

Things even spilled into the press box.

You can imagine Stoops’ frustration was compounded by the fact that, at least through the first half, the Cats were getting beat even worse than the final score ended up indicating.

Georgia Tech went for it on fourth down inside their own 20-yard line and proceeded to continue to march the ball down the field to score on a 96-yard, 11-play scoring drive. At halftime the score was 20-3.

There was some jawing here and there on the field, but no fracasing or fisticuffs between actual players on the field. The coaches certainly let their feelings show, though.