BATON ROUGE, La. -- Jalen Hurts is an exception to much of what we thought we knew.

Nick Saban will never start a true freshman quarterback, we thought. Hurts was taking the top-ranked Crimson Tide’s first snaps by Week 2.

Saban won’t lean on a quarterback as a runner and primary playmaker, we assumed. Hurts already has more rushing yards (521) than any Saban-coached quarterback ever.

Surely Hurts will have a freshman moment, right? It hasn’t happened yet, but LSU’s defense hopes that hiccup will finally come Saturday night at Tiger Stadium.

“With Coach O we’re undefeated right now, and they’re the No. 1 team and we’re looking forward to them coming in here with the freshman quarterback,” LSU defensive back Dwayne Thomas said last week, referring to LSU’s 3-0 record since interim coach Ed Orgeron took over for Les Miles. “After Arden [Key] hitting him a couple times and the crowd making a lot of noise, he knows we’re DBU -- we’ve got the best secondary in the country -- I mean, it’s going to be tough for him.”

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Thus far, Hurts has defied even that reasonable assumption about freshman quarterbacks. His Total Quarterback Rating in three road starts (86.0) is actually higher than his QBR at home (69.2) or at a neutral site (64.1).

In fact, playing at loud road venues barely seemed to faze Hurts. At Ole Miss, the Tide trailed 24-3 in the second quarter before roaring back for a 48-43 win, and he performed well in front of 102,455 screaming Tennessee fans at Neyland Stadium in a 49-10 Alabama rout. He ran for 100-plus yards in each of those games and combined for four touchdowns (two rushing, two passing) in his other road start against Arkansas.

“Hurts, he’s a good athlete,” LSU cornerback Donte Jackson said. “He runs behind a tremendous offensive line. With that skill set, you really have to account for his feet. And then they have another dynamic back with that two-headed system that they’ve got going on. So you really just want to account for their run and stop the run and try to get them to put the ball in the air a little more.”

The Tigers’ offense could also give LSU’s defense a hand by not shooting itself in the foot. In each of those road games, Alabama scored at least two non-offensive touchdowns, taking some of the pressure off its young quarterback’s shoulders.

Keeping games competitive against Alabama is tough enough without giving away touchdowns on turnovers and kick returns -- and it has only gotten tougher since Hurts added the option running element to Alabama’s quarterback position.

“He’s like a Wildcat back there. I treat him as a tailback,” Orgeron said. “He’s big, physical, can run the football. Chad [Kelly, Ole Miss’ quarterback] was just a competitor, but you hit him, he’s going to go down. This guy, you have to tackle him. He can run like a big tailback.”

Jalen Hurts has brought a new dimension to the quarterback position at Alabama. Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

The Wildcat comparison is valid, and it represents a huge change for the Alabama offense under coordinator Lane Kiffin. Hurts operates almost entirely out of the shotgun. In Saban’s pre-Kiffin years, Alabama asked its quarterbacks to operate in a more traditional fashion.

According to ESPN Stats & Information, Alabama’s quarterbacks have been in the shotgun or pistol on 87.4 percent of their snaps this season (513 of 587 plays). In the previous two seasons with Kiffin calling plays, Alabama’s QBs were in the shotgun or pistol 56.3 percent of the time in 2014 and 75.6 percent in 2015.

In Saban’s first seven seasons at Alabama, the Tide lined up in the shotgun or pistol on 22.2 percent of their offensive snaps.

LSU has faced mobile quarterbacks before and fared OK against Mississippi State’s Nick Fitzgerald (120 passing yards, 13 rushing vs. LSU) and Eli Jenkins, who stars at FCS power Jacksonville State (248 passing, 82 rushing, 1 TD, 1 INT), but now the Tigers are facing a dark-horse Heisman Trophy contender in Hurts.

The Tigers surely want to do their best to contain the freshman as a runner and take their chances with his passing, but there’s no guarantee that even that approach would work. Hurts is fourth in the SEC in passing efficiency with a 142.7 rating.

“We’ve got to compress the pocket, and I think that’s the main thing as far as he’s a big runner,” LSU nose guard Greg Gilmore said, “but if we keep the lanes good as far as pass-rush lanes, we’ll be OK.”

Maybe, but it’s never safe to assume anything when facing Hurts. In less than a full college season, he has already obliterated so many notions about what a freshman quarterback can accomplish -- both under Saban and in general.