Despite a published report this weekend that the University Of Kentucky would not consider Bobby Petrino (above, left) — he of the recent ill-fated motorcyle ride / adulterous relationship that cost him his job at Arkansas — for their head football coach opening, Petrino’s father, Bob Sr. tells the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Adam Himmelsbach that his son, “wants to stay in the SEC. That was his life’s goal was to go to the SEC.”

“I know he wants a job; he needs a job,” Petrino Sr. said by telephone Wednesday. “He told me, ‘I need a job, Dad.’ I said, ‘Well, you must still have some money. You made 31/2 million dollars.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I do. It’s not the money.’ He just misses coaching so much.”

“You know, he made mistakes,” Petrino Sr. said, “but he couldn’t have gone through any punishment worse than losing his job. He’s missed coaching tremendously.”

“I think he’d win there (Kentucky),” he said. “He can win. He’s proven that. He went to Arkansas and I don’t think he ever had, by the experts, a class of recruiting that was in the top 10. And the last year he coached there he won 11 games, and the year before that he won 10, so he has his own way of recruiting and judging people.”