[4] He graduated from Oklahoma City's Central High School in 1942, and then enlisted in the military at age seventeen during World War II.

[5] Andros served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps; a cook, he picked up a rifle and was awarded the Bronze Star and spent more than a month under heavy fire on the island of Iwo Jima in 1945.

[6][7] Andros played college football at Oklahoma from 1946 to 1949, under hall of fame head coach Bud Wilkinson.

[6][11] Andros' coaching career included stops as an assistant at Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas Tech, Nebraska, California, and Illinois.

[22] The Vandals rebounded and the next week won the Battle of the Palouse for the first time in a decade, defeating neighbor Washington State 28–13.

[23] The Cougars were led by first-year head coach Bert Clark, a former Sooner teammate; the Vandals split the final four games to finish at 4–6.

While Idaho had been a driving force in the founding of the Big Sky Conference in 1963,[24][25] it was primarily to alleviate basketball scheduling and the Vandals remained an independent for football through 1964 under Andros.

Only one conference foe was played during the first two Big Sky seasons, a 1963 game with Idaho State that was previously scheduled.

One of his first-year hires at Idaho in 1962 was alumnus Bud Riley (1925–2012),[26] then the head coach and athletic director at Lewiston High School, thirty miles (50 km) south of Moscow.

Andros was nicknamed "The Great Pumpkin" for his bright orange jacket and large physical size,[3][4] first dubbed by a Spokane sports columnist during the 41–13 homecoming rout of WSU in Pullman on Halloween weekend in 1966.

[23] As OSU head coach, Andros was 8–3 against Washington State and split the first ten games with Washington while headed by former Oklahoma teammate Jim Owens; Oregon State was beaten 35–7 by the Huskies in Seattle in 1975, Don James' first season at UW and Andros' last in coaching.

[42][43] Andros retired as AD in the spring of 1985, and continued to serve as a special assistant within the Beaver Athletic Scholarship Fund until health problems forced him to remain at his Corvallis home.