Football is gone, but do not fret. The Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition is out and the ridiculously gorgeous, nineteen-year-old Kate Upton is on the cover.

SI has also continued their tradition of famous female athletes in body paint bikinis as well. Most notably is U.S. women's national soccer team member Alex Morgan.

Side note: If you get the issue on a tablet or smart phone, you'll be able to see 360 view pictures of the bodypainted athletes. LPGA’s Natalie Gulbis and U.S. swimmer and 11-time US Olympic medal winner Natalie Coughlin also get the body paint treatment. You can see a 2D picture of Alex Morgan after the jump. See more of Kate Upton here and more of Alex Morgan in nothing but paint right here.

Yes, I know. The sky is gray outside. The Super Bowl is gone from Indianapolis. In all likelihood, Peyton Manning is gone as well. However, at least you have Kate, Alex, and a couple gallons of body paint to brighten up your Valentine's Day.

Jim Tressel may or may not be the next head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. The general consensus of most local media is hiring Tressel would be a tough sell. Personally, I think Tressel is a fraud, but that's my opinion. Others who work here at Stampede Blue (ahem, Mr. Stew Blake) think highly of Tressel. Both of us believe he will NOT be the Colts' head coach.

But, what if he is? Would it piss you off? Vote and chit-chat below.

Just like yesterday, I'm trying to get back in the habit of just tossing up a quick discussion-thread-like post a day. It's not news-related or a long, detailed article talking about how Bill Polian sucks. Just some quick ideas, hoping to get folks talking so it can spark even more ideas, suggestions, opinions, etc.

Reports are all over the place, saying the Colts will interview Titans assistant Jerry Gray, Saints OC Pete Carmichael, and Bengals DC Mike Zimmer. John Clayton also tossed CFL coach Mark Trestman's name out there as a possibility. Also potentially in the mix are Jim Tressel and Steve Spagnuolo. Tressel is still on staff as a consultant with the Colts, and Spagnuolo was interviewed for the vacant defensive coordinator position before Jim Caldwell was fired.

For me personally, the candidates I am leaning towards are Zimmer, Carmichael, Dennis Allen of the Broncos, and Perry Fewell of the Giants.

I'll explain why I like all four later. Right now, can you give me your pros and cons for these four guys?

I haven't done a post like this in a while, where I just toss up an article that's a few sentences long, asking for feedback from your readers. Apologies.

Basically, in the comments, please list head coaching candidates you think the Colts should target. I have one off the top of my head: Dennis Allen, defensive coordinator of the Broncos.

Who are you candidates?

Since 7:00 a.m. this morning, I've been glued to my seat. I've been talking on Twitter, reading emails, answering texts, and writing, writing, and writing some more. I stopped about 45 minutes go. Had some dinner. Had a glass of wine. The craziness of the day is melting away.

In about 30 minutes, I plan to turn on ESPN and watch Andrew Luck play in the Fiesta Bowl. I also have articles to write for this blog, SBNation.com, and SB Nation Indiana about the events that took place today in Colts Land.

Matt and I will have more on this tomorrow, but before we get into all the post-mortem regarding Bill Polian's career in Indianapolis, I wanted to take a moment to say 'thanks' to you readers for riding along with us today. We did our best to attack this story with everything we had. We wanted content up, quick and fast, and more content waiting in the wings. Based on our numbers for the day, it looks like we succeeded.

So, again, thank you. We are entering, as Jim Irsay stated earlier today, a new era for the Indianapolis Colts. we certainly hope you will enjoy this new era with us here.

Go Colts

Happy New Year!

Today brings us the beginning of the 2012 year and (for us Colts fans) the merciful end of the 2011 NFL regular season. All season long, writers like me have complained, ranted, protested, and argued nearly everything the Colts have done. Whether it was their incompetent bungling of Peyton Manning neck injury, their misjudgement of the back-up quarterback position, or their inability to field a professional-grade football team for the first 13 weeks of the season, the Colts front office, coaches, and players all looked like a dysfunctional mess in 2011.

In 2012, there will be changes to the roster. There will be changes to the coaching staff. There might even be changes in the front office (we hope). But, all that is unimportant right now. We'll have plenty of time after today to recap the 2011 season and point out all the wonderful things the Colts did to make us fans miserable.

In this post, I'm just going to say thank you. Thank you to YOU. The readers. 2011 was a huge year for us. We're rated in the top five in SB Nation's network of football blogs, and we're consistently (in terms of traffic) one of the most highly read blogs out there. 8 million page views for the year was a record for Stampede Blue, and considering it came in a year that had a loooooooong work stoppage coupled with a 0-13 start to the season for a small market team minus Peyton Manning... well, that's damned impressive.

I also want to thank fellow editor Matt Grecco, who has helped me immensely in both his stats analysis and his game previews. He's also just been a great person to work with for the last four years, or so. Additional thanks to writers David Deitz, Eric Miller, Stew Baker, and Collin McCollough (who left us to make more money at Bleacher Report... booooooo).

As I often say around here, this blog is probably not for raw-raw cheerleaders. We think around here. We analyze. We look at decisions, use our knowledge to break them down, and then formulate conclusions that usually result in a response such as 'WTF was that sh*t!' We don't blindly cheer on incompetence, and we don't particularly think that the people in charge are all that good at what they do. We believe fans are owed a consistently good product on the field, and we think the team should treat them with the respect and class they reasonably deserve.

That's what all this is about, isn't it? It's about the fans, right? In reality, it isn't.

The NFL exists to make money for itself and its corporate sponsors. Budweiser and Comcast are more important to Roger Goodell and Jim Irsay than you or me. If Roger Goodell and Jim Irsay didn't need us, they wouldn't care that stadiums in San Diego, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, and St. Louis have had a hard time selling tickets all season. Regardless, just because the NFL isn't for fans doesn't mean we fans should just sit by and watch our favorite teams suck. Shrugging your shoulders, saying 'oh well,' and shuffling on to the next distraction was fine and good before you paid $720 million (and now $28 million annually for maintenance) for Lucas Oil Stadium.

Again, you're paying money to the Colts even if you don't buy tickets!

Knowing this, for me personally the 'oh well' mentality doesn't work anymore. Fans should put the screws to ownership and management. It's 'Win, or GTFO!'

I'm never one to just accept failure. But, that's just me. I'm an activist at heart. A 'troublemaker' as one person (also known as 'my wife') once told me. What we decided to do in 2011 was switch our focus from just reporting on the team to actively using our credibility-influence-whatever to push for change. REAL change.

The goal was to inform, motivate, and get you beer-drinking, Hoosier assh*les to care that stupid people were f*cking up your football team. In some ways, I think we succeeded in doing that.

Going forward, that's what we will continue to do. I won't be arrogant and say this blog is 'THE VOICE OF THE FANS,' because no blog can accomplish that. Some sites cater to blind allegiance to the team, regardless of facts. That's fine. 'Fan' is short for 'fanatical' after all. What we try to be here is a voice of accountability. A voice of anger. A voice of constant 'What Have You Done For Me Lately' towards the team.

The team exists to provide entertainment to us, the customers. That's all. At it's base level, that is what the Colts are about in Indianapolis. What we are about is making sure that entertainment meets with our standards, and let's just as that at $720 million (and $28 million annually in maintenance), we have pretty high standards.

I know many of you beer-drinking, Hoosier assh*les feel similar, and we all sincerely thank you for reading our work. We look forward to your comments, tweets, emails, and other forms of expression as the 2011 season ends and 2012 begins. This year will begin a new era for our Colts, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. We look forward to it.

We hope you do too. Go Colts.

OK, so, back in August, SB Nation released it's iPhone app. This allowed you to view SB Nation blogs and sites (like Stampede Blue) on your iPhone or iPad.

Naturally, after the tech guys rolled that out, the follow-up question was, 'When are you going to make an app for Android?'

The answer is NOW!

The SB Nation Android app is finally here. Get it at the Android Market for FREE.

I just installed it on my Galaxy tablet this morning, and as an avid tablet user, I personally love the app. No joke. No bull. No cheap 'I'm saying this because the sales execs at SB Nation are begging me to say this.' The truth is the app provides a much better viewing and contributing experience than accessing Stampede Blue through the standard 'mobile' page.

To get the app, here's what you need to do:

1. Download the app.

2. Give us a (good) review on the app page.

Give us feedback in the comments. Our product team will be reading these comments.

For me, I now have the SB Nation app on my iPhone and on my Android tablet. I officially have no life.