Jalen Hurts didn't see it coming. Around the right edge, Ole Miss' Marquis Haynes arrived like a heat-seeking missile, making direct impact with the Alabama true freshman's upper body.

Hurts dropped to the turf, as the ball tumbled out of his arms before being picked up by the Rebels' John Youngblood and carried 44 yards to the opposite end zone for a touchdown.

It was the second quarter of Alabama's 48-43 victory Saturday, and the Rebels just increased their lead to 21 points. All seemed lost for the top-ranked Crimson Tide.

Hurts retreated to the sideline, and the quarterback would have been forgiven if he were rattled or even dazed. But running back Damien Harris studied Hurts' reaction following the devastating hit.

And, as Harris put it, he was "no different than he was before."

Not even a little bit?

"No," Harris affirmed.

Hurts wasn't the least bit shaken by a physically and emotionally jarring play Alabama coach Nick Saban explained was the result of a "missed execution of a line call."

As center Bradley Bozeman said, the quarterback, who was later named SEC offensive player of the week, didn't seem angry after being rocked because of a blown assignment.

"He was just like, 'I still got y'all's back. Y'all got mine. Let's keep rolling,'" Bozeman recalled. "He didn't let it affect him at all. He got back in the game and kept playing. Lot of maturity out of Jalen."

These were telling comments about Hurts' demeanor and they shed light on why Saban has entrusted the offense of his elite program to a player less than a year removed from high school. Even more illustrative of Hurts' uncanny poise was what he did on the possession that followed the sack-fumble.

Immediately after that crushing moment, Hurts regrouped and led a three-play, 50-yard touchdown drive that took 37 seconds to complete.

The normally hard-boiled Saban was so impressed by Hurts' composure that he went out of his way Monday to praise the quarterback following a question about the team's young defensive backs.

"Think about when you were a freshman in college," Saban told the media. "...These guys are still trying to figure out going to class, how to handle the social aspects of their development, which is a little difficult when you're that age, and come to practice and prepare for a game, and all that.

"So some guys are unique in their ability to do that. Jalen is a little bit like that. He's very focused, nothing affects him, nothing bothers him. Nothing bothered him in the game."

Never was that more apparent than in the most pivotal period of Alabama's victory-- when the Tide's deficit reached its peak and hope seemed to be fading. It was at this critical juncture that the unflappable Hurts may have won the team for good.

"He showed that he's not your typical freshman," linebacker Shaun Dion Hamilton said.

Through three weeks, he's demonstrated he's much, much more. In this era of Alabama football, he's simply an anomaly.