With 27 seconds left in the first football game ever called the Governor's Cup, a pass from Louisville quarterback Marty Lowe fell into the hands of Kentucky's Donte' Key, sealing a 20-14 Wildcats win and closing out the most anticipated rematch either program had played in seventy years. Lowe, the first quarterback to start that rivalry game for the Cardinals and later the youngest head coach in Arena Football League history, died in September 2026 at 54, two weeks before his 55th birthday.

Lowe grew up in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area and was named the state's Mr. Football as a senior at Red Bank High School in 1990. He arrived at Louisville a year later and spent his early seasons behind starter Jeff Brohm. When the job opened up, Lowe won it, and in September 1994 he started as Kentucky and Louisville met on a football field for the first time in seventy years, a 20-14 loss in Lexington that introduced the Governor's Cup trophy to the series. "You have pregame jitters anyway, but just as a quarterback, my vision wasn't as experienced, at that point," he said of that debut three decades later, in a 2024 interview carried by Yahoo Sports.

He kept the job through his senior year, throwing for 2,268 yards and 16 touchdowns in 1995 and starting 22 consecutive games across his final two seasons. He finished his Louisville career with 4,861 passing yards and 27 touchdowns, numbers that still rank sixth and tied for ninth, respectively, in school history, according to Yahoo Sports. He carried his arm into the Arena Football League, playing quarterback for the St. Louis Stampede in 1996 and the Texas Terror in 1997, before a knee injury ended his playing career.

Coaching came next, and it came quickly. Lowe finished a bachelor's degree in sport administration at Louisville in 1996 and a master's in education in 1999 while working his way up the sideline: three seasons on Louisville's staff starting in 1997, then a jump to the Arena Football League as an assistant and later offensive coordinator for the Nashville Kats, whose offense scored more than 50 points in each of its first three playoff games in 2000 on the way to Arena Bowl XIV, and a year coaching running backs at UTEP, according to Western Carolina University Athletics.

In 2002, Lowe was named head coach of the Georgia Force, reportedly the youngest head coach in Arena Football League history at the time. He led the Force to an 8-8 record and the franchise's first playoff berth in 2003, and finished his three seasons in Atlanta with a 17-19 overall record. After a year calling Louisville games for WHAS Radio, he spent two seasons as Western Carolina's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, developing All-Southern Conference picks Darius Fudge and Lamont Reid, who went on to sign with the Tennessee Titans. In 2007 he returned to the Arena League as director of football operations for the Louisville Fire. He was married to Michelle Washle Lowe, and the two raised a son, Bryce, and a daughter, Reece.

When word of Lowe's death spread, it reached his old backfield mate first. "He was a great person, great teammate. We definitely send our condolences to him and his family," said Jeff Brohm, now Louisville's head coach, in a statement confirming the news. Deion Branch, the Cardinals' wide receivers coach, remembered him more simply: "Super selfless guy. I enjoyed my moments, my times with him."

Lowe's name is permanently attached to a rivalry that Kentucky and Louisville now play every year without anyone questioning whether it will happen. He was the one who took the first snap of it. It shows up, too, in the coaching trees he helped build across three states, in the quarterbacks and running backs he taught in Nashville, Atlanta and Cullowhee, and in a Louisville program that, thirty years after his own playing days ended, still counted him as one of its own when it confirmed his passing to the public.