By Will Vandervort.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — With a first-and-10 at the Clemson 44-yard line Thursday night at BB&T Field in Winston-Salem, N.C., Wayne Gallman took a handoff from quarterback Cole Stoudt and ran right, and right up the back of right tackle Kalon Davis.

The freshman running back was thrown for a two-yard loss on the play, the second straight time he carried the football for no gain or minus yards because he outran his blocks.

“The offensive linemen told me to really slow down and be patient because they were setting things up,” said Gallman following No. 19 Clemson’s 34-20 victory over Wake Forest. “If I would be just a little more patient I’m going to hit it and I will see it, so I really got focused on what they told me.”

He wasn’t lying. He was focused and very patient, too.

Gallman rushed for 90 of his career-high 106 yards in the second half, including a 30-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter that sealed the Tigers’ sixth straight victory.

When the second half began, the Loganville, Ga., native carried the ball for 15, 9, 12 and 9 yards on his first four touches.

“That is something he has really worked on and we have really tried to work on in the last week – being patient with it and understanding it is going to take a little bit of time. He is feeling it out,” Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris said.

Gallman still had a couple of moments when got a little impatient, like when the Tigers were on their own goal line in the third quarter and he tried to bounce the ball outside when he should have stayed with the play and hit the small crease that was opening up on the left side.

But those plays were few and far between in the second half as he turned his 1.8 yards per carry average at halftime to a 5.6 yard average by the end of the game.

“That is part of being a young guy and he is learning and he is getting better,” Morris said. “That’s back-to-back weeks of 100-yard plus games and that is a tribute to our offensive line and those guys digging in up front as well.”

Clemson (7-2, 6-1 ACC) ran the ball for 145 yards, but 119 of those came in the second half, the second straight game in which the Tigers’ offensive line took over the line of scrimmage in the last 30 minutes.

Against Syracuse, Gallman ran for 84 of his 101 yards in the last two quarters.

“It’s all about want to with me,” he said. “The practice habits, I try to focus on that. It is just knowing my offensive line and what they are going to do for me and what my team does so I want to give back to them.”

On Thursday, he gave back by running with the ball, catching it and blocking. He had picked up a couple of blitzes in the game that allowed quarterback Cole Stoudt to stay upright on a few plays and he also caught an 18-yard screen pass from Stoudt that he turned into a touchdown.

That score gave the Tigers a 10-7 lead with 7:00 left in the second quarter.

“It was wide open. Isaiah (Battle) and (David) Beasley they got a block on it pretty good so it was wide open,” Gallman said.

The right side of the line came open in the fourth quarter, too, when the Tigers were just trying to eat clock with a 27-20 lead and a little less than seven minutes to play.

“It was what they had been doing the whole game so I saw it right before the play,” Gallman said.

What Gallman saw was a possible gap between Tyron Crowder and Kalon Davis. When he took the ball he hit the hole with authority and broke open into the clear for his game-clinching 30-yard score.

“We were completely into the flow of the game and I credit the offensive line for all the hard work they put into it, I can tell you that,” the freshman said. “We just really battled it out because we wanted it.”

And no one wants it more than Gallman right now.

“Y’all have heard me talk about Wayne Gallman for a while. He is becoming a complete player and really just understanding the speed of the game and how to be a good running back, it just takes a little bit of time, especially when you have a guy that really hadn’t played a lot of running back,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “He played a lot of wing back, but he hadn’t played a lot of running back, going downhill. He’s a fast guy and sometimes he can be a little impatient. He’s maturing. Two games in a row of over 100 yards.”