This is an opinion column.

The sport of gymnastics pairs art with athleticism — grace with strength. It’s complex.

Most of it washes right over the casual viewer’s head. For us, I mean them, judging an elaborate routine comes down to one crucial element: the dismount. Did they arrive on two feet? No steps?

Did they stick the landing?

John Calipari, apparently, isn’t a gymnastics guy. And don’t bother picturing him in a leotard because his Kentucky dismount didn’t just miss the mat but the whole gym entirely.

What’s felt like a year-long, slow-speed collision with this week’s events marks the end of an era in a bizarre tangle of gaffes and missteps.

The Sunday night news of his impending departure for Arkansas went through a few stages of reality. Initially stunning before making logical sense, the news just kinda sat there all day Monday without confirmation (not without effort and we’ll get to that).

Then into Tuesday before his hostage-style video broke some of the tension but in an oddly uncomfortable way.

Wooof.

Pardon, Wooooo … pig?

Given their parallels, it’s hard not to compare the whole situation with Nick Saban’s farewell a few months earlier. Granted, Calipari is seven years younger and not ready to retire but both arrived at decaying empires around the same time.

Saban landed in Tuscaloosa in 2007, two years before Calipari arrived to the wreckage of the Billy Gillispie episode. Both pumped instant oxygen into starved fan bases and, with aggressive recruiting strategies, had them back to championship form.

Just 84 days after Saban won his third national title at Alabama, Calipari won his first at Kentucky — both at the Superdome in New Orleans.

Now 87 days after Saban’s retirement, Calipari announced his 15-year run in blue is over.

In the end, he never looked more alone.

Unlike Saban, Calipari doesn’t have an agent like Jimmy Sexton puppet mastering the moves behind the curtain. That’s partially how you end up with videos like Monday’s of Calipari walking his dog down the street in a stroller.

“No, I don’t,” he said when asked by a local reporter to comment on the situation, “I’m walking my dog right now.”

It’s actually not as bad as the footage of his predecessor, Gillispie, running down a hallway pretending to be on the phone during a similar ambush interview in 2009.

Still not the visual — one with millions of online views as of Tuesday evening — you’d expect from a one-time blue blood program savior.

Neither was the video he released Tuesday afternoon.

Frankly, it looked like one of those 90s movies video wills that begins with “If you’re watching this, I’m already dead …”

The tone felt like it had little input from anyone specializing in messaging. Except from one line about “opportunities that have been presented to us,” you’d think it was a retirement message from the afterlife. He said it was time to step away, four times mentioning the need for “another voice.”

The last of which was the conclusion:

“Again, it’s been a dream, what we’ve been able to do,” Calipari said. “But 15 years … time for another voice. And you know I’m always going to be a fan. Thank you.”

Always going to be a fan? You’re going to a conference rival.

Though the process was clearly flawed, the move was the right one.

Unlike Saban at Alabama, Calipari’s program clearly plateaued and the locals had enough. Another stunning first-round exit, its second in three years, meant Kentucky’s streak without a Final Four extended to eight tournaments. Since falling in the 2015 semifinal, SEC schools South Carolina, Auburn and Alabama each made their first trip to the promised land that was once a Big Blue birthright.

But the formula felt stale.

They weren’t bad by most standards found anywhere outside Lexington. They just weren’t elite.

He lost a few too many Citrus Bowls, in a football translation.

Kentucky clearly didn’t have the appetite to eat the $33 million buyout needed to can Cal and Arkansas has plenty of processed chicken cash to lure him to the land of pork. The Tyson Chicken family reportedly ponied up to make an offer that unburdened Kentucky and Calipari while injecting some energy into a proud Razorback program that lost its coach after a particularly disappointing season.

Arkansas is the kind of place where a quick reboot is more in order than a complete rebuild and the resources are there for a final coaching chapter.

And yet it all still feels weird.

Nearly 48 hours after news of a deal leaked, nothing official has been announced by Arkansas even after Calipari’s way-too-long video goodbye to BBN. There have been leaks from the Kentucky side of the situation that painted a visual not quite as unflattering as the leotard line above, but still not great for Calipari.

By almost any standard, he had a great run with the Wildcats.

Six SEC titles, six more league tournament crowns to go with the four Final Fours and the 2012 national title.

In the end, he looked alone — just another guy out walking his dog in a stroller down a busy Lexington street.

A sad footnote from a former savior who couldn’t stick the landing.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook