FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Gary Andersen's dog died late last spring. Her name was "Aggie," acquired by the family during his Utah State coaching days. Late on a sad Thursday night in May, the Oregon State football coach laid her to sleep.

I only know because we were supposed to talk that day for a column I was working on. Andersen asked if I wouldn't mind connecting with him the following day.

"She's my baby," he told me then.

A month before that, in April, Andersen attended the wedding of his oldest twin son. The father of the groom wore a tuxedo with a blue vest beneath it. He posed for photographs, made a toast, and to friends, he smiled and lifted the pant leg of his slacks to reveal that the coach was wearing a pair of Nike "Swoosh" socks instead of dress socks beneath the cuff.

"I have good boys," he told me then.

What I'm saying is that since Andersen last coached a football game, he's lost and gained and lived, mourned and laughed. He's inherited a prized transfer running back (Thomas Tyner), named a starting quarterback (Jake Luton), and this week when I asked the Beavers' coach how he was feeling about the season opener - unknowns swirling all around him -- Andersen replied with words we all might have seen coming.

"It's a tough man's game," he said, "you gotta dig in and dig deeper."

Count me among those interested in seeing the latest installment of the sociological experiment being conducted by Andersen. Since his arrival in Corvallis I've talked with Andersen 1-on-1 on a dozen or more occasions, and the common theme of the majority of those conversations relates around the fact that he is trying to turn a battleship in the narrowest of canals.

He wants Oregon State to stop thinking, talking, and acting like "little old Oregon State." He wants the Beavers to stop feeling sorry for themselves. He wants his team's identity to be forged from sweat equity, bound by strength and glued together with toughness.

"It's a wall I work to beat down every day," he told me in the summer. "Got to keep grinding and take care of the things that matter."

Saturday's game at Colorado State is an important pivot point for Andersen's program. It's a "put up or shut up" game for his players. Road game at Colorado State? In a new stadium opening? An underdog playing at 5,000-feet of altitude?

"Little old Oregon State" would lose that game.

It would wilt.

It would wobble.

It would get its teeth kicked in.

But if Andersen really has changed the identity of his program, and if he's going to take OSU to a bowl game, it's exactly the kind of game the Beavers should win. It's the kind of game where the Beavers do the kicking. It's not a must-win. It's just the first big revealing moment in what promises to be a season filled with big moments.

Has Andersen killed Oregon State's loser mentality?

The non-conference football season is filled with questions. But that's the biggest question that will be answered on Saturday by Oregon State. Is it still "little old Oregon State"? Or nah?

I asked Beavers broadcaster Mike Parker about the differences he's seen in watching OSU coaches such as Dennis Erickson, Mike Riley and Andersen cycle through the same job over the years. Parker pointed out that players, even ones recruited by Riley, said of Andersen this season, "Everything he tells us comes true."

He's brutally honest in his evaluation of talent, it's true. He's real with his players. I've seen Andersen walk past them and shout constructive criticism at them. And I've heard him tell an assistant of a couple of his players who weren't getting the offseason work done in the weight room, "We can't be with them on game day. They have to do it. Handling their business now matters on Saturdays."

No sugar coating. No lowering of standards. No excuses. Get busy being part of the solution, or get out of the way. But will all that messaging and posturing manifest itself in victories in this season? Will he really take the Beavers to a bowl game? Andersen has to be a nervous wreck. Maybe the most nervous coach in America right now, or at least the most nervous among the 10 head coaches who open this season this weekend. I can imagine he's going to spend Friday night and Saturday early morning, reassuring himself that he's put in the work, and as he told that assistant, it's up to the players now.

He can't know - FOR SURE - how his team will handle the environment in Fort Collins, Colo. He can't know if Luton is truly ready to win a big game at quarterback. He can't know, without doubt, whether his defense will make enough plays or his running backs will run wild.

Has Andersen really turned the USS Beavers battleship? Or is he sitting perpendicular in the channel with an oncoming rig approaching? Wide open water? Or wide-open hull? That's what we find out on Saturday.

I'm sure when Oregon State scheduled this game it didn't expect to find Colorado State looking formidable on both sides of the ball, and opening a new stadium in front of a sellout crowd. When it moved the contest to "Week Zero" to create two bye weeks in the season, there was obvious advantage to the conference schedule. Also, it made Oregon State one of the featured games nationally. But the biggest opportunity for the rest of us is that we're not going to have to wait through a tune-up game against Portland State to figure out if Oregon State is back.

It's not like the Beavers entire season is on the line against CSU. But if they're going to be bowl eligible this season, the Beavers are going to have to win some road games (at Colorado State, at Cal, at Arizona, for example). Andersen has never won a road game as the Beavers coach. To be bowl eligible, it's not lost that he'll have to win as many games (six) this season as he's won in his first 24 attempts (6-18) as the head coach in Corvallis.

The end-of-season victories in 2016 over Arizona and Oregon, two programs that were struggling to finish, were promising. They were proof of life. They were especially interesting because they indicated that OSU had an identity. The Civil War, in particular, ended with the skies opening as Ryan Nall sliced up the Ducks porous defense. It was momentum, but did it say more about OSU or its dead-in-the-water opposition? We can't know for sure until we see a larger sample size.

When Riley ditched Oregon State for Nebraska, he was making a statement. No doubt, Riley felt unappreciated and decided to throw in the keys. He'd raised the profile of the university, but felt stalled.

The Beavers didn't interview a pool of candidates. They never hired a search firm. They just looked up and Andersen fell from the clouds, landing smack into their laps. It felt like a steal. Assist to Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin. But from the moment Andersen showed up it's been, "We need to be tougher... stronger... better... and we need to stop making excuses and feeling sorry for ourselves and fight."

Also, he's talked about OSU being his forever job. It's all lined up that way for Andersen, isn't it? He bought his forever house. He got a new dog (a boxer) this summer. His former athletic director at Utah State (Scott Barnes) was hired in December.

We get a peek into forever on Saturday.

--- @JohnCanzanoBFT