In college I raced about 12 times a year (4 races a season). I looked forward to races because we didn't get to do them very often and every time I raced I was going all out and actually racing. Sure, the early season races I wasn't as sharp for or peaking, but they were still as fast as I could go on that day.
Cheserek basically never runs all out. Even in a championship setting he just jogs in the pack at a tactical pace and then blows everyone out of the water at the end, barely being challenged (except for the indoor 3000 where Jenkins "beat him").
He and Jenkins went and jogged a qualifying time in the Stanford 10,000 and then went to the Oregon Pepsi Invitational and jogged 14minutes in the 5000 there. I'm sure he'll jog and then easily kick away from people at conference, regionals and NCAAs as well.
Where is the fun in any of this? He's not challenged by his competitors and he doesn't challenge himself by trying to run new faster PRs. That's the whole point of being a competitive runner.
I'm trying to put myself in in this scenario. My PRs are about 14:50/30:45 so if my season was like Cheserek I would:
-tempo a 10K in 31:45-32:00 (finish 26th while people ahead of me were running close to my PR)
-tempo a 5K in 15:30ish with my teammates, not racing it in
-Run a few more slow races against people no where near my level and beat them all easily with a big kick at the end
I don't see the appeal in this. Or the point. I understand "saving yourself' for the big races, but even the pros race all-out on multiple occasions throughout the year and try and drop fast times. And is an NCAA title even meaningful to Cheserek? I mean, would you be excited if you beat a 6 year old at checkers?