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Report: Fewer New Year's Eve, New Year's Day bowls due to College Football Playoffs

The Outback Bowl has been played on Jan. 1 seven of the last eight years. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)

The Outback Bowl

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have long been staples of the college football bowl calendar.

But because of the College Football Playoff, of traditional bowl games only the Outback and Capital One Bowls will be played on Dec. 31, 2014, or Jan. 1, 2015. Those days will be dominated by playoff semifinals, which this season will be the Rose and Sugar Bowls, as well as the four other bowls in the playoff semifinal rotation — the Orange, Cotton, Peach and Fiesta — ESPN.com's Brett McMurphy reported on Friday, citing conference officials.

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There have been 10 to 12 bowls played on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 each of the last seven years, McMurphy reports, and this year there will be eight.

The Peach Bowl will be the early game on New Year's Eve, followed by the Fiesta and Orange. They will be the only games played that day.

On New Year's Day, the Outback and Capital One Bowls are expected to kick off between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET, and will be played concurrently with the Cotton Bowl. Then the Rose Bowl will start around 5 p.m. ET, followed by the Sugar Bowl.

The Taxslayer Bowl (formerly Gator), which was played on Jan. 1 the last 19 seasons in Jacksonville, will move to Jan. 2, McMurphy reports, while the Heart of Dallas Bowl will also move from New Year's Day.

The Sun Bowl is tentatively set for Dec. 27, according to McMurphy, after six straight seasons on Dec. 31. The Liberty Bowl will also move off New Year's Eve.

There will be a record 39 bowl games this season, up from 35 in 2013.

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