ANN ARBOR >> For the second straight week, Michigan sagged in the second half but managed to win, ironically, by the exact score.

The No. 12 Wolverines held off Minnesota, which scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, in a topsy-turvy 27-24 win on Saturday at Michigan Stadium.

Michigan (4-1, 2-0 Big Ten) won its Big Ten opener against USC last week, 27-24, but needed a late score to prevail.

This was the 99th time Michigan and Minnesota played for the Little Brown Jug, the oldest trophy game in college football, and Michigan now has a 73-23-3 record in those meetings. The Wolverines, who opened with five straight at home, will play their first road game of the season next Saturday at Washington.

In his second start at quarterback, Alex Orji was 10 of 18 passing for 86 yards and a touchdown but was intercepted after missing wide-open tight end Colston Loveland late in the third quarter. The Gophers (2-3, 0-2) took advantage of the pick, converting the turnover for their first touchdown of the game.

Kalel Mullings, who made his first start at running back, rushed for 111 yards and two touchdowns and recovered on an onside kick with 1:36 left in the game. Tyler Morris scored on an 11-yard pass from Orji, while Dominic Zvada had a 53-yard field goal and a 35-yarder with 4:33 remaining to make it a two-score game. Zvada is now 7-for-7 on field goal attempts, including four from 50 yards or more to become the first Michigan player to make four from that range in a season.

Cornerback Will Johnson, who on Monday said he had a banged-up shoulder in the USC game last week, and edge Josaiah Stewart, coming off his best game of the season, were listed as questionable but didn’t play against the Gophers. Without two of their best players, the Wolverines’ defense had five sacks and two turnovers but gave up 166 second-half yards, 21 fourth-quarter points and two fourth-down conversions.

“We respect the win,” linebacker Ernest Hausmann, who led the team with nine tackles, said. “Winning in this league is not always easy. We’re not satisfied with the way we won. We’re gonna go back and take a look at the film and get better.”

The Wolverines have won their last three after losing to Texas, 31-12, on Sept. 7, but have been outscored in the second half of those three games a combined, 57-26. Arkansas State outscored Michigan 15-7, USC had a 21-13 edge and Minnesota outscored the Wolverines 21-6. Michigan led 21-3 at halftime against the Gophers.

“Like I told the team in the locker room, it was really a tale of two halves for us,” Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said. “We played really well in the first half and not as good in the second half. The energy that we had, I felt that we had, but the execution wasn’t there. As a coach, I gotta make sure I do a good job of turning that thing up in the second half for them, making sure they’re ready to go. They were, but we just didn’t execute as well as we needed to.”

Minnesota’s Darius Taylor, a Detroit native who starred at Walled Lake Western, scored two touchdowns in a three-minute span in the fourth quarter to pull within 24-17 with 11:05 left. The first came on a 14-play, 76-yard drive following the Orji interception late in the third quarter. A personal foul by defensive tackle Mason Graham, who had two sacks, gave the Gophers a first down at the Michigan 13-yard line, negating an incomplete pass on fourth down. Taylor scored two plays later on a 3-yard run.U-M » Page 2

The Wolverines responded with a time-consuming 14-play, 58-yard drive that culminated with the 35-yarder by Zvada for the 27-17 lead with 4:33 to go.

“For our defense, I thought there was a lot of really good things to build on,” Moore said. “From a special teams standpoint and an offensive standpoint, we have to do things to make sure that we don’t put them in those kind of positions.”

The Gophers got the ball at their 25-yard line and drove 75 yards on 14 plays. They converted twice on fourth down and scored to make it 27-24 with 1:37 left. Quarterback Max Brosmer connected with Daniel Jackson on a 12-yard touchdown pass. Brosmer finished 27 of 40 for 258 yards, the one score and an interception.

Minnesota then attempted an onside kick that the Gophers recovered but an offside penalty negated the play and forced another kick.

“I don’t know if it was a weird bounce, kinda went past where we initially thought it was going to,” Morris said of the first onside kick. “Them recovering it definitely brought up a lot of feelings that we know we had to stick it out again and just hope that our defense could hold ‘em to not even getting a field goal. Once we realized they were offsides, it was definitely a lot of relief.”

On the next attempt, Mullings recovered the onside kick with 1:36 left, giving the Wolverines the ball at the Minnesota 38-yard line.

“We practice that and after the first one I knew he was probably going to do the same thing, so I was a little bit more aggressive with it,” Mullings said.

Michigan, despite Orji recovering his fumble for an 11-yard loss on second down, managed to run out the clock.

In the first half, Michigan built a 21-3 halftime lead as the defense generated two turnovers — on a fumble forced and recovered by Zeke Berry and interception by Jyaire Hill — and Kechaun Bennett blocked a punt. The Wolverines were able to convert two of the turnovers into touchdowns. Michigan also had four sacks, with two from Graham, one by tackle Kenneth Grant, and Rayshaun Benny and Derrick Moore combining for the fourth.

The Wolverines will head to Seattle next weekend to face Washington. From now until then, they’ll have to work on how to finish strong in games.

“We’ll go back and check the film out,” Hausmann said. “It’s always important to start out the second half strong, finish it strong, same energy coming out in the first half. We’ll check the film and get better.”