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Logan • The two coaches remember the moment vividly.
It was 1985. The opponent was Arizona State. Ron McBride remembers the brash Utah rookie, Gary Andersen, firing up his teammates, taking a team flag, running out to midfield and planting it at ASU's 50-yard line.
The move wasn't planned. It was cocky. It was way over the top. And Andersen's offensive line coach, McBride, loved it.
"That told me all I needed to know about him," McBride said on Tuesday night, more than 25 years later. "I knew I had a hell of a player and a tough kid. He had great leadership, and that stood out to me."
Andersen's flag-planting triggered a long relationship between Andersen and McBride that will begin a new chapter Saturday, when the two meet as the head coaches — of Utah State and Weber State, respectively — for the first time in Romney Stadium.
It's a relationship that grew beyond the traditional coach-player friendship. Andersen, who coached under McBride at Utah, calls him a second father. To this day, he refuses to call McBride by his first name. He calls McBride for advice whenever he needs it, and when Andersen had a scary fall last year that landed him in the hospital, it was McBride who was one of the first people to contact him.
"He was very, very hard on me," Andersen said. "He was very difficult to play for because he was very demanding on me. To this day, I realize that he only wanted the best for me. That's just who and what he was. He shaped me into the coach I have become."
In that same flag-planting game against Arizona State, Andersen tore his anterior cruciate ligament and missed the rest of the season. And that's where the two became tight. Andersen, now in his third season at Utah State, played his senior year at Utah and was one of the highest rated centers in the country going into the season.
And then he got hurt again, ending his collegiate career. Still wanting to have a shot at playing in the NFL, he landed with the Los Angeles Rams, chiefly because of McBride's contacts within the league. Two weeks into that stint, Andersen was injured again, ending his playing career for good.
At that point, Andersen went into an emotional tailspin. His playing days were over. He was depressed. He had prepared for life after football, but he wasn't ready for it to happen so soon, so abruptly. Andersen spent four months wondering what was next.
"It was a very difficult time in my life," Andersen said. "I didn't know what I was going to do or where I was going to go. Life after football was something that I never seriously thought about."
The phone rang. It was McBride. Get up, he said. You need to become a coach.
"He took me to the next step of my life," Andersen said. "For that, I'll be forever indebted. He didn't have to do that. He cared for me and wanted me to be successful in life. Not many people are like that."
Those are the gestures that led to Andersen and McBride becoming life-long friends. When Andersen went to Utah, it was because McBride brought him to the Utes. When McBride was in the process of being fired, it was Andersen who he asked to be with him.
The relationship goes beyond those two. When McBride's youngest daughter Kelly was looking for a house, she bought Andersen's in Murray. When Andersen's wife Stacey finds her husband's schedule difficult to take, she's quick to make a phone call to Vicki McBride, Ron's wife.
"She's like a second mother to me," Stacey Andersen said. "Both of them have always been there for us. She gives me great advice, and I hope that I've made her proud."
Beyond that, the two coaches are ultra-competitive, which is why all mushy feelings will be tossed out when the two meet at Romney Stadium. Both teams are coming off near-upsets of favored opponents. Both teams have running games and offenses that controlled the line of scrimmage in their season openers.
"Those guys are good," McBride said. "We're going to have a big challenge ahead of us."
Twitter: @tonyaggieville —
Gary Andersen and Ron McBride
• Andersen played for McBride at Utah and coached under McBride a decade later.
• The two are meeting as head coaches for the first time.
• Andersen is in his third season as Utah State's head coach. —
Weber State at Utah State
P Saturday
6 p.m.