Alabama football has enjoyed recent success against in-state rival Auburn, winning three of the last four games between the two teams. But the Crimson Tide lost a battle off the field to the Tigers when five-star linebacker Reuben Foster, who was previously committed to the Tide, announced that he would flip his commitment to Auburn.

“I thought it was going to be interesting,” Aaron Suttles, senior recruiting analyst for tidesports.com, said when asked about Foster’s recruitment. “I thought Alabama had its work cut out to hold him until signing day. There were a lot of signs that he was looking around.”

Foster is widely considered the top linebacker in the class of 2013 and second-best overall player behind consensus No. 1 prospect Robert Nkemdiche. He attended Troup County High School in LeGrange, Ga. when he originally committed to Alabama. But a coaching change made Foster decide to transfer, and he ultimately decided on Auburn High School in Auburn, Ala.

“The writing was on the wall when he transferred high schools and picked Auburn [High School],” Suttles said. “A lot of people were scratching their heads then, and it didn’t really come as a big shock when he decided to flip.”

Another reason Foster may have flipped was Alabama’s depth at linebacker. The Tide signed five linebackers in February and already has a commitment from five-star Jonathan Allen for 2013. Foster would have faced an immense amount of competition for a starting job.

“I’m sure he was thinking, ‘That’s a lot of depth that they’re going to have,’ so that was part of it,” Suttles said. “He’s got some good friends at Auburn. He’s really close to Dee Liner and Carl Lawson.”

The loss of Foster still leaves Alabama with plenty of depth at linebacker moving forward, but Suttles thinks the Tide will still try to sign another linebacker for the 2013 class. He mentioned Walker Jones, brother of Harrison and Barrett Jones, as a possible target, as well as Matthew Thomas, considered a heavy Alabama lean.

But Alabama slipped a couple of spots in most of the major rankings for team recruiting and will need to make up some ground if it wants to finish with another No. 1 class.

“You lost a five star player like Rueben, they drop in the rankings,” Suttles said. “It’s pretty imperative in terms of rankings, if they want to challenge for that top spot, they’ve got to hold on to O.J. Howard and add some big names down the stretch.”

Recruiting is always an unpredictable subject as prospects are constantly changing their minds on where to go to school. But a Foster recommit seems unlikely. Foster tweeted a picture of a tattoo he had recently gotten of the Auburn logo on his arm.

“I’ll never say never in recruiting, however, when he got that Auburn tattoo on his forearm, that was pretty significant,” Suttles said of a possible flip back to Alabama.

“There’s always laser surgery to remove it, but he certainly inked his intentions.”