NEW ORLEANS — When everyone expects you to win all the time, it brings a different kind of pressure or expectation to the table.

Since 2011, only one team in college football has won more games than the top-ranked Clemson Tigers and of course that is the very team they will play in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Eve as part of the College Football Playoff.

No one knows what it is like to have the pressure to win week in and week out better than No. 4 Alabama. While Clemson has won 82 games in the last seven seasons, the Crimson Tide has won 88. Every week, their opponents give them their absolute best shot and the majority of the time they still find a way to win the game.

People expect Alabama to win. People now expect Clemson to win, too.

“I definitely feel that people have that persona of us that we just automatically win,” Clemson cornerback Ryan Carter said. “I think they don’t understand how hard it is to win every week. It is just a challenge every week.

“Everyone has great players. Everyone is good. Everyone has Division I athletes. So it is definitely hard taking on that persona, but we have done a great job managing that, especially within our team. We have done a great job staying together and collectively working together.”

What Clemson (12-1) has done to get back to the College Football Playoff for a third straight year is attack the season. Though the Tigers are considered the defending national champions after beating Alabama in last year’s title game, they have attacked the season as if they were still the hunters instead of allowing their opponents to hunt them.

“Coach (Dabo) Swinney always says, ‘we are the attacking champions not the defending champions,’” Carter said. “He says that because we are not trying to defend anything but instead trying to attack it and win another national championship. So that is really our mindset. That is what we are basing our season on, just attacking that and not pulling up or anything like that.”

Clemson has attacked the season by pretty much destroying anyone that has got in its way. In their 12 wins, the Tigers have won by an average margin of 24.8 points per game, including wins of 24 and 35 points over South Carolina and Miami. Clemson led the country in overall game control in 2017.

The only time the Tigers did not have that focus and did not attack their opponent, they lost, losing to Syracuse at the Carrier Dome on a Friday night in mid-October.

“When we lost to Syracuse, guys responded the right way,” Carter said. “What I think was beneficial for us is that we have a lot of guys that have been in this situation. When we have lost a game we know that just because we lost a game, it is not the end of the world type of thing.

“So I think the most beneficial thing for us is that we have had guys that have been in this position and knows what it takes to do the whole thing. We know what it takes to win at this level, and I think that has been beneficial for us this year.”

Clemson responded to the Syracuse loss by rattling off six straight wins. Outside of a tough seven-point win at NC State, the Tigers have blown through the competition with an average margin of victory of 26.3 points.

The 38-3 victory over Miami in the ACC Championship Game is the largest margin of victory in school history over a ranked opponent.

“I think it helped us a lot because we knew this journey and this team was going to be a whole lot different than last year’s team just because of all the pieces we lost,” Carter said. “We knew how many unknowns there were and things of that nature. So we knew it was going to be a different team and just kept our focus and kept our eyes focused on where it needed to be. We knew the rest would take care of itself.”