Computer simulations, analytical ESPN pundits and even psychiccats have already predicted which college football team will winMonday's much-anticipated BCS National Championship Game betweenthe University of Alabama and the University of Notre Dame.

But now, perhaps a friendly contest between the $537 million Alabama Credit Union in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and the$437 million Notre Dame Federal Credit Union in South Bend,Ind., may become the new prognosticator of the outcome of thenational football champion game.

If so, it appears that the Fighting Irish will defeat theCrimson Tide. But Alabama CU said you shouldn't place your wagerstoo fast against the defending college football champions.

Notre Dame FCU President/CEO Tom Gryp challenged Steve Swofford,his counterparts at Alabama CU, to see which credit union could getthe most credit card applications by midnight Jan. 7.

Both credit unions agreed to contribute $5,000 toward the prize.The champion will receive the full $10,000 to donate to the charityof their choice.

Since the contest launched on Dec. 12, both credit unions havebeen marketing the credit card contest to rally their membersthrough direct mail, branch posters, Facebook, Twitter, and goodold word-of-mouth marketing.

And as of noon Monday the score was 305 credit card applicationsfor NDFCU and 245 credit card applications for ACU.

But with less than 12 hours to go, ACU predicted the CrimsonTide would overtake the Fighting Irish.

“Let me tell you. We are going to catch up with them,”said Kelley Jones, ACU's marketing coordinator. “We don'thave all of our credit card applications counted yet fromFriday.”

The contest is closer than what the number of applications show,however.

“We decided to determine the winner based on the number ofapplications we both get in as a percentage of the number ofmembers, as opposed to a pure number because we (NDFCU) are largerthan they are. We want to make it fair,” explained Deidre J. Davis,senior vice president for marketing and member experience at NDFCU.“We are at .56% and they are at .49%, which is only the differenceof 32 applications and that's what scares me.”

ACU has 49,455 members and NDFCU serves 62,779 members.

“Go Irish Beat Bama” reads a poster graphic on NDFCU's Facebookpage.

“The Luck of the Irish Stops Here,” boasts a postergraphic on ACU's Facebook page.

NDFCU said its social media exploded right after the credit cardcontest began Dec. 12.

“Our Facebook total likes during the promotion went up byapproximately 2% (42 new likes – total is now 1375),” said Davis.“However, the engagement level (people talking with/about us) wentthrough the roof – from 158 people on average per week to 2,597 perweek. Our reach (the number of people seeing our posts) alsoincreased from a weekly average of 2,435 to 30,866 – almost1,200%.” The credit union also had 37 Twitter retweets/favorites,which is up from approximately one to two retweets/favorites.

Regardless of who wins the BCS championship, both credit unionsare going to be the big winners.

On a regular month, NDFCU processes about 185 credit cardapplications. ACU has about 65 average monthly credit cardapplications.

“We are thrilled with the number of credit cards we haveopened,” said Jones. “We have almost tripled our average monthlycredit card applications. Credit cards have almost become theforgotten loans that a lot of credit unions are going to befocusing on this year. This was an early push for us. We didn'tinvest that much but we've had fantastic results.”

“It truly is a friendly competition. Both of us are going to dobetter when we get more credit card applications in,” said Davis.“So we really want each other to succeed, and the contest just addsa little more flair and it gets our members, and even non-membersinvolved. “