Jim Harbaugh hopes to give over 120 players in-game experience this season

Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh has shown that he isn't afraid to play as many players as possible if the situation is right. For instance, the Wolverines played 84 players total in the rout of Colorado State on Saturday.

A good percentage of the 84 were true freshmen getting field action for the first time. The new redshirt rules allow players to play up to four games at any point during the season to preserve a redshirt.

When asked about playing players and reserving redshirts, Harbaugh explained the philosophy of the program.

"Our philosophy has always been that they’re going to be better in their fifth year than they would be in their freshman year," Harbaugh said. "But if they can make it into the two deep and get playing time, every week, you feel like they’ll be better football players for having played football. I mean you get better at football by playing football. So that’s really—if they can be into the two-deep, we’ll play them in four games. And if it’s going to be something equivalent to, not important time in the game, then we would just play them up to four games.

"Those would be individual decisions based on how much they can contribute versus being that much better in the fifth year."

If it were up to Harbaugh, every single player on the roster would see game action. Of course, not every game can be a blowout where he can afford to play players that are lower on the depth chart that wouldn't typically see the field in a tight game.

If the team is afforded a chance to dip into the reserve pool, Harbaugh is going to do it and he's not shy about saying it publicly, either.

Harbaugh hopes to set a record for how many players on his roster have seen game action.

"You get to get better at football by playing football. And if we have the opportunity, we’re always gonna play guys as much as we can. And right now, we’ve got over 100 on the roster that have played in games. I’d like to set a record there, I’d like to get 120-130—hopefully, we get everybody to have played football. It makes the team better, makes them better. Great for the morale of the team.

"Everybody wants to play. See how many we can get, hopefully. Hopefully, we’ll be in that position. You don’t know if we’ll be in that position or not. But if we ever are, we’re going to get as many guys in there as we can."