South Korea = The Utah Utes

Park Ji Sung scored a goal against Portugal that allowed the U.S. to advance out of its group in 2002.

Alex Smith quarterbacked Utah to an undefeated season in 2004, under Coach Urban Meyer.

BYU-Utah is a surprisingly intense rivalry in college football not always grasped by "outsiders" who fail to the see the difference. With Japan represented by BYU, South Korea gets Utah. The Utes, are also known as the "Running Utes" and the Korean team does plenty of running as well. The "Taeguk Warriors" typically play an attacking style with high-pressure defense.

Utah and South Korea are both elite at lower levels of competition and ordinary at higher levels. South Korea has won 2 Asian Cups and qualified for every World Cup since 1986, but they've advanced out of the group only twice-- a Round of 16 appearance in 2010, and a 4th-place finish as one of the co-host nations in 2002. Similarly, Utah advanced to the 1998 NCAA title game in basketball and had an undefeated football season in 2004 as a member of the Mountain West Conference. Since joining the Pac-12, however, they've struggled in both major sports.

The Taeguk Warriors seemed to have a good chance of adding to their knockout stage experience this year, given the general weakness of Group H. Unfortunately, having drawn Russia and fallen behind Algeria, the Koreans' odds of advancing are now quite long, even with Belgium-- their last group opponent-- having already qualified for the next round.