Unless something unforeseen occurs, Jalen Hurts will make his second career start behind center at Ole Miss in Alabama’s first true road game this Saturday. And Nick Saban is doing everything he can to prepare the true freshman quarterback for the hostile road environment he will face in Oxford, as the Crimson Tide looks to snap a two-game losing streak.

During his weekly radio show Thursday night, Saban gave a long-winded answer to a question about Hurts.

“We tried to do things in practice that was gonna help him in the game,” Saban said. “I think that there’s two things going on here. There’s a circumstance that he’s gonna be in that we try to manage and control and get him ready for by having noise in practice, making him go on silent count. It makes it more difficult for the offense to function in practice, but it certainly gets him more prepared for the game.

“... The second part of it is is where is he in his maturity as a quarterback to play the position? How much can we put on him? How many decisions can we expect him to make? And I think those are the things that are really important to try to manage. Now, does it limit you to some degree? It can. But at the same, I don’t think you wanna ask guys to do things they’re not capable of doing or not ready to do because I think then you’re just asking for problems.”

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Through two games, Hurts has thrown for 405 yards and four touchdowns on 29-of-47 passing, and that’s with a limited playbook at his disposal. The offense will gradually broaden around him, but Saban also wants to see the rest of the offensive players step up to support the first-year quarterback instead of committing penalties and facing third and longs.

“I’ve challenged the offensive players to play better around him,” Saban said, “and I was very, very disappointed last week in how we performed as a team but especially on offense in getting 10 penalties, having a lot of inefficient plays, in terms of how we blocked, how we finished.

“We made a lot of explosive plays, some of which got called back, but just the consistency in performance, and to me, it’s very, very important if you have a young quarterback who lacks a little knowledge and experience to have the people around him play well for him and not depend on the quarterback to get all them to play better but them to play better so it makes it easier for him and we put him in better situations.”

Alabama’s offensive line has struggled through two games, especially when it comes to moving the football on the ground. It is averaging almost 17 rushing yards less per game from a year ago and is ahead of only Kentucky (9) in terms of allowing the most sacks. And this weekend, the Tide will face a much better defensive front in the deep group Ole Miss will field.

But as much as Saban wants the entire offense to play well in order for Hurts to succeed, he knows the true freshman will learn the most from simply stepping into the fire. From what he’s seen so far, Hurts isn’t afraid to face it.

“Some of the things that he has to do, he’s gonna learn to do by playing,” Saban said, “and there’s nothing you can do to accelerate that except doing a great job of coaching them and teaching them and using every teaching moment that you have to try to help them learn and grow. He is a guy, now, that is very conscientious, and he is a guy that this is very important to, aight. And he spends time and he wants to be well-prepared and he wants to do all the things you need to do to develop, but sometimes you’ve just gotta play.”

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