Jesse Luciano has the credentials, Nick Holmes has the upside, and Sam Bailin has the drive.

But as far as Iowa men’s cross-country coach Larry Wieczorek is concerned, the top runner on his squad has yet to reveal himself. And on a team that features All-Big Ten honoree Luciano, that’s a very good thing.

“The ‘No. 1’ [finisher] could be the ‘No. 3’ finisher from the previous week, and the week after that, the top finisher could be someone else,” Wieczorek said. “All of them have been training together. Six or eight guys have been running step for step. I want the guys to understand that’s a good thing.”

Bailin, who Wieczorek calls the most improved runner on his team, seconded his coach, though had some reservations about his own expectations.

“I feel like Jesse is the top guy. He almost made the All-American team last year,” Bailin said. “But out of all the years I’ve been here, I feel like this year all the top guys are the most even.”

In cross-country scoring, wins are tallied by assigning points to the top-five finishers on each squad with the winner getting one point, second place getting two points, and so on. The team with the lowest combined score wins.

Bailin said that teams run in packs, which form naturally with athletes running with their training partners from practice. For this reason, he will likely run alongside Luciano and Holmes.

With so many runners competing at around the same level, Wieczorek’s pack-running strategy should pay dividends for the veteran cross-country coach.

“When you look at your team, you try to see how close the No. 1 guy is to the No. 5 guy,” Wieczorek said. “How close are they split-wise? The more guys we have finishing toward the front, the better.”

For the early portion of the cross-country season, Wieczorek said he will tell the runners to run together as a team for as long as they can, and he hopes to see “a lot of Iowa shirts” at the front of the pack.

He also realizes that it is still a race, and once competition starts, his runners will separate.

“It will be interesting to see who will separate,” he said. “If one guy breaks from the pack, I tell my guys to let him go.”

Bailin said there are a number of reasons a runner will run from the pack and go off on his own.

“If there is [a runner from a different school] in front and in the lead, then someone will break from the pack and chase him down,” Bailin said. “If someone is feeling good toward the end of the race, he will be the one to run [the rival runner] down.”

Holmes, who won last year’s Hawkeye Invitational after breaking from the pack to chase down a rival runner, said the real race doesn’t start until the pack is broken.

“Usually, after around 4,000 meters have been ran, people start making moves,” he said. “You don’t want another school’s runner to get the individual crown. Toward the end of the race, everyone sort of says, ‘Let’s see who can push it for that last 1,000 or 2,000 meters. Who wants it the most.’ ”