CHAPEL HILL – The last month has been a bit of a whirlwind for Jacolby Criswell.

He was told not to expect playing time this season when he transferred back to North Carolina from Arkansas. Then he showed up for fall camp in late July 20 pounds overweight.

But in the matter of 16 days, UNC lost starting quarterback Max Johnson for the season with a gruesome broken leg injury, and then backup Conner Harrell struggled. Criswell was summoned in the middle of a win over NC Central, and has taken nearly every snap for the Tar Heels since.

Criswell was banged up late in the loss to Georgia Tech on October 12, so Harrell ran the last two plays for UNC. But Criswell is rested after a bye week and is ready to tackle the last five games of Carolina’s season.

So, during the open week, in which the Tar Heels practice Tuesday-Thursday, Criswell reflected quite a bit.

“That was pretty much a lot of time for me to just really not only think about the team as a whole but think about me coming in and performing and doing the things that I’ve been doing.”

Criswell is 105-for-187 passing with 1,367 yards, 8 TDs and 3 interceptions so far. Yet, the Tar Heels are 0-4 in his starts and currently own a four-game losing streak. They are back in action Saturday at Virginia, which is 4-3 overall and 2-2 in the ACC. The Wahoos have lost consecutive games.

Criswell met with the media Tuesday afternoon at the Kenan Football Center to discuss himself, the open week, and more. Below are video of his interview and some notes from what he had to say:

*Criswell said he looked hard on how he can improve but also acknowledged some areas of improvement. But the mission is to get better with each rep, he says, so that has been his focus.

As for the positives, Criswell said he made “huge strides” since taking over the QB1 job.

*All athletes envision themselves in key roles, and Criswell is no different. He thought about how he would be as the number one QB, so what about it has been a surprising challenge and not?

“As a guy that hasn’t gotten many reps and hasn’t played much, I expect myself to perform like this… Obviously I know the way I wanted to perform and obviously you want to come out winning regardless. I don’t care about the stats, I don’t care about anything else, it’s more to me about winning, and that’s all I care about.

“I hold a lot of stuff on me and I wish we could come out with this wins. I put it all on me. I’m a young quarterback and still trying to figure some things out, which I think I took huge strives at. I think I’m only going to get better.”

*Obviously, Criswell stayed in mental mode throughout the open period. But it did give him a chance to physically heal. He had been taking a lot of hits when dropping back to pass and also with added run calls the previous two games.

He did not play the last two offensive snaps against Georgia Tech because, as Criswell described it, he “took a pretty big blow.” It appeared he was holding his left ribs, though Criswell didn’t disclose Tuesday. But he did talk about healing.

*While Criswell has maintained a positive outlook, and the message from Mack Brown is the post-bye week signals a new start for the team, it’s harder than it would seem given what the team has been through.

Offensive Line Coach Randy Clements extremely serious health situation at the outset of fall camp and intermittently in the season, the totality of Johnson’s injury, and then the final month of Tylee Craft’s life are heavy things for one team to absorb.

“We’ve had, the first half of the season, we had some adversity we have to get through. It was good that we had a bye week to really reflect on things. It’s such a challenge 100 percent, but it’s a challenge for every single guy in this building wants to meet head-to-head with.

“And I feel like we all want to be head-to-head with it and we’re going to take it and we’re going to use it the second half of the season to do what we want to do; finish out the way we want to finish out.”

*In addition, Criswell spoke about how he’s getting more comfortable making the right decisions when to run and when not to; personal faith in a higher being serving as a powerful tool to get past the death of Craft and using him as inspiration; plus UVA’s defense.