It's true that Jakob is better on track and not the best XC runner on a tough and hilly course, such as Aarhus was. But 13:02 and sub 28 is good enough for NCAA (where most courses are not like Aarhus either).
I don't want to underestimate the NCAA and the depth of XC running in Europe is not always great. But there are a whole bunch of European youngsters running in the NCAA and sometimes also the U23 Euro XC, so some comparison is possible and at the top it seems fairly close although NCAA often has better depth, i.e. I think Moller (15:07) or Gressier (13:23) who won the u23 would also place tops or at least very well in the NCAA races.
And quite a few of the top Europeans skip XC, even more this year because Doha was so late. Among the women, the only better Europeans who ran in Doha and Lisbon were Moller and Grovdal, the men's race had a better field but again, many were missing.