The sweet elixir of college football team chemistry and confidence cannot be cooked nor stirred in the laboratory, and it is at once as elusive to create as it is difficult to sustain. Get just one ingredient wrong, egos misaligned, or distractions or hype overdosed, and it sours. Seven games into the 2010 season, ten of the twelve SEC teams have discovered that it is impossible to make an undefeated run without it, regardless of how deep the four and five stars are stacked on the roster.

"You can't buy team chemistry at WalMart," quipped Auburn quarterback and Cam Newton recently, undoubtedly warming up for late night show invitations which may well come his way after a trip to New York City.

The magic of college football often treats us to the completely unexpected, even as the "expected" is turned on it head amid the respective glee or gloom of rival fan bases. Such was the case in 1993 for a group of Auburn Tigers whose preseason believers numbered few, but who had seized the magical blend of chemistry, team unity, and resolve, not that they could win big, but that they would.

What makes the '93 Tigers' story so compelling is the landscape on which they accomplished their run into the hearts of the Auburn Family. The 1992 season ended in seismic depression, with the unwelcomed retirement of legendary Coach Pat Dye, followed by a mythical national championship prize awarded to the Tigers' blood rival, Alabama.

And as if the gridiron gods were not satisfied in their sadism, the NCAA sanctions banning postseason play and television were announced mere days before the '93 season opener against Ole Miss. If there was a "bottom" that had to be reached, the state of the program seemed subterranean.

The Terry Bowden hire was viewed by some as largely a face saving "interim" move, and subject to no small amount of rival ridicule as the dominant program of the 1980's was reduced to hiring a head coach from a lower-tiered program like Samford.

Few or no Auburn fans were boldly forecasting great expectations for the 1993 season, and against the panoply of an August, 1993 S.W.O.T. (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, you could hardly blame them.

Given the unparalleled lineage of tailbacks at what most consider Running Back U, it is only fitting that the 1993 team would feature a powerful and determined tailback by the name of James Bostic as it entered the SEC gauntlet. Bostic followed the lead block of Auburn running back Otis Mounds from Dillard High in Ft. Lauderdale to the Loveliest Village, along with Frank Sanders, Calvin Jackson, and Brian Robinson, the "Dillard Four".

What few fans know is that Bostic's visit and subsequent signing with Auburn was as improbable as the 1993 undefeated season itself.

Bostic had made a firm commitment to the Tennessee Volunteers, and was being recruited by Vols assistant David Cutcliffe. In a gesture of fairness he would later regret, Cutcliffe encouraged Bostic to take his visits to colleges of interest. "Take your visits," said the Vols coach, "you've earned it and deserve it."

At that stage, Bostic had no interest in visiting Auburn, until a fateful twist of Peach State connections thickened the plot. Bostic had played high school ball in Millen, Georgia, prior to moving to Ft. Lauderdale where he completed his high school career.

Coach Dye happened to be related to the wife of Bostic's high school coach in Millen, a few calls were made, and Bostic's visit to Auburn was on. Coach Dye does get around when it comes to recruiting.

From his home in Coral Springs, Florida this week, Bostic fondly recalled the '93 season, and in doing so, offers insight to 2010 team members and fans alike.

"Heading into the summer of 1993," remembers Bostic, "deep down, we knew we had a strong team. In the '92 season, even in games we lost we had played tough for four quarters. We were also a very close-knit team; and had picnicked and partied together often. Frank Sanders and I would hang out with offensive linemen like Shannon Robique and Jason Taylor.

"After the coaching change from Coach Dye to Coach Bowden, we were initially confused, but quickly committed ourselves, and made up our minds that we were going to have a big season and make our fans proud."

In a normally ill advised SEC opener, the '93 Tigers would make a statement that they were no dink and dunk offense, and power football was alive and well on the Plains. Behind an offensive line led by seniors Wayne Gandy and Anthony Redmon, Robique, Taylor, and freshman star Willie Anderson, Auburn established the ground game against the Rebels. Bostic, then a junior running back, burst onto the scene with 154 yards on 28 carries in a hard fought 16-12 win.

Two games later, the Tigers would take their hopes for a monster season on the road to Baton Rouge. Given the parity in today's SEC football rivalries, it is remarkable to note that Auburn had not won in Death Valley since 1939. But in an offensive explosion that yielded an astonishing 550 yards of total offense, Stan White moved ahead of Pat Sullivan as Auburn's all-time passing yardage leader in a 34-10 woodshed job on LSU.

"Going into the road trip at Baton Rouge," says Bostic, "we were absolutely confident as a team we could go in and take care of business. It was almost as if we knew we would find a way to win."

Two subsequent games against perennial weaklings, Southern Miss and Vanderbilt, would provide unexpected tests of the team's confidence. Southern Miss scored 17 points in the 3rd quarter to take the lead 24-20 over Auburn. But White would hit Thomas Bailey on a 40 yard deep ball to retake the lead for good in a 35-24 win, moving the Tigers to a 4-0 record.

The fan excitement and expectation was growing, but the segment of once bitten and twice shy Auburn fans remained, with the wounds of 1992 still fresh. Ironically, which is a lesson to today's Auburn fan who attempts to take stock of nailbiters like the road Kentucky win, the long suffering Commodores would give Auburn their closest call of the entire season in Nashville.

The 'Dores slowed the Auburn offense to a grind, except for an impressive 4th quarter drive, which ended with Bostic ripping it in from the 4 yard line on the offense's only score of the night. The Tigers would find a way to win on a Brian Robinson pick six, and a dramatic goal line stone-walling of the 'Dores four times inside the Auburn five to escape with a narrow 14-10 win.

Here sat the Tigers, at 5-0, but for those who recall, still few or no bandwagon hoppers for an undefeated season. That would not be "logical" following narrow escapes against a no-name cellar dweller, Vanderbilt, so the thinking went.

Until the Gators came to town on October 16, 1993, led by the potent Spurrier attack and quarterback Danny Wuerffel. "On paper, you couldn't find any way we could beat Florida," Bowden would observe later. What the experts could not see coming that overcast, drizzly Saturday was an extremely balanced offense with a veteran senior quarterback and offensive line, talented receivers Thomas Bailey and Frank Sanders, and a loaded backfield featuring Bostic, fullbacks Tony Richardson and Reid McMillon, and Bostic's understudy, sophomore Stephen Davis.

Nor did the experts adequately appreciate a tough, physical Auburn defense that was very well coached by Wayne Hall.

In an untelevised game that truly cheated the national viewing audience, the two teams exploded for 41 points in the first half alone, with Calvin Jackson saving the Tigers' bacon on a 95-yard pick six as the Gators were about to annex an insurmountable lead.

Auburn closed the Gator lead in the 2nd half, and Bostic would take center stage on a game-turning 4th and goal at the Gator five yard line. The play is hands down my favorite Bostic run for two reasons - it typifies the never-say-die toughness of Bostic, and secondly, I had a close-up view of the play from my south end zone seat in what would turn out to be the last Auburn game I got to enjoy with my father in Jordan-Hare.

On a toss to the left side, Bostic had nowhere to go and appeared to be dead to rights as he was hit by the Gator linebacker.

"The linebacker hit me," recalls Bostic, "but I planted hard, cut inside, and put my shoulder down and broke free. The defensive back thought I would keep breaking outside, so he overpursued, allowing me to dart into the end zone."

I vividly recall Bostic striking a classic pose, left arm out, sliding right in a victory dance, as the celebration was on.

"I still see Ericct Rhett (Florida running back) from time to time in Florida these days," chuckles Bostic, "and without fail he still asks me, 'how in the hell did you get out of that tackle'?"

The Tigers were becoming impossible to pattern in their formula for winning, and to this team it mattered not. As Coach Gene Stallings is fond of saying, "the fun is in the winning." Whether a 14-10 ugly escape against Vandy, an explosive win in Baton Rouge, or a defiant 38-35 score-fest against the Evil Genius, the only math which mattered was six wins, zero defeats.

And the '93 Auburn bandwagon wheels were now caving under the weight of fans and media alike hurling themselves aboard. The team would find a way to win on a snowy, icy field in Fayetteville before heading into the crucial Georgia-Alabama season finale.

Big games bring out the best in big-time players. Bostic would seize his own chapter in Running Back U lore in fine fashion in the Georgia game, rushing for 183 yards and three touchdowns as the SEC offensive player of the week.

Ten and Oh - with but one opponent standing between the improbable undefeated 1993 season, and a soothing salve on the wounds of 1992 - the defending national champion Crimson Tide, in Jordan-Hare.

The game is etched in your DVD and YouTube brains, and requires no recap, except for the game-icing play as recalled by the man of the hour himself, James Bostic.

"After we got the ball back on Dell McGee's interception with just 2 minutes in the game," remembers Bostic, "I knew we would be running the ball. Although Bama was stacking the line with 8 or 9, Coach Trickett kept saying all game that we were going to keep running the ball until they stopped it.

"On that first down, in the huddle, Tony Richardson and I were talking, and both noticed that Bama was stacking the line and we could hit a big play. I told Tony to get a hat on a hat, and we would score on that play."

Anderson blocked down and pancaked his man, and Richardson destroyed Rogers, the Bama linebacker, sending him airborn. "I squeezed inside, turning the Bama defensive back around," said Bostic. "And Frank Sanders made a huge block on Langham, and I just turned it on.

"I couldn't hear anything but crowd noise as I made it to the end zone. When I turned around, I saw Tony and he just body slammed into me with his helmet already off!"

At the heart of the joy and celebration for the two running backs was that seconds earlier, both had called it. "You get a hat on a hat, and I'm taking it to the house," promised number 33. Promise made, promise delivered to a jubilant Jordan-Hare crowd whose team had nothing more to prove, and frankly my dear, didn't give a damn.

Besides the possibility of an undefeated run, are there parallels from 1993 to 2010? You be the judge, but number 33 offers insight and hope for this year's Tigers regardless.

"I see the same team chemistry and confidence, and this team just finding a way to win every week," observes Bostic. "The wide receivers and backs are making plays, and the O-line is playing at a very high level. As for Cam Newton, he is incredible, and I don't know what Florida was thinking letting him get away. Cam is more athletic than Tebow."

And having travelled this road, Bostic's advice to the team? "Go out and continue to get better," he put simply. We weren't perfect as a team in '93, but we focused on one opponent at a time, and found a way to win."

And as a fellow fan now, Bostic's word to the Auburn Family? "Keep believing, and keep supporting the guys 100%," he offers. "We had that kind of support in '93, and it played a huge part the run we had."