AAC vs Mountain West

Kelly Lyell, who is a reporter for the Fort Collins Coloradoan said the following:

Mountain West is down this year, but most years is as good at the top or better than AAC, in my opinion https://t.co/jbZKl3MSrB

— Kelly Lyell (@KellyLyell) November 3, 2017

and I thought the same as well.  So I looked at whether this holds using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model since the 2008 season.  The results are listed in the table below.  First, I found the top ranked team in each conference and listed the conference.  The AAC/Big East had the better top ranked team in six of the ten seasons.  Then I looked at the average of the top four teams in each conference and found that the AAC/Big East had the better teams in nine of the last ten seasons.  Finally, in terms of conference overall rankings, the AAC/Big East was better than the Mountain West for each season.

Season		Top		Average
2008		Mountain West		AAC
2009		AAC		AAC
2010		AAC		AAC
2011		Mountain West		AAC
2012		AAC		AAC
2013		AAC		AAC
2014		AAC		AAC
2015		Mountain West		AAC
2016		Mountain West		Mountain West
2017*		AAC		AAC