Much has been made about the growing divide between Georgia and South Carolina, and one of the ways that’s reflected is in the betting line. The game, which is set for noon on Saturday in Athens, opened with a 24-point spread, and has moved to 24.5 at some locations, according to Vegas Insider.

David Purdum of ESPN Chalk added some perspective to those numbers in an interview with The State.

“As far as the last 30 years that I looked at, this is the largest point spread in the series,” Purdum said. “South Carolina is a bigger underdog to Georgia than it’s been the last 30 times they played. It shows how these two programs, which way they’ve gone. … Now of course two years ago it was 23.5, which is pretty close to where we are now, but going back to 1997, if the line holds at 24.5 or 25, it’s going to be the largest one in this series.”

Georgia has won 4 straight in the series by margins of 41-17, 24-10, 28-14 and 52-20.

“Georgia’s won five out of the last six — they’re 3-3 against the spread in that little run,” Purdum said. “Something that I thought was somewhat notable is this series has been higher scoring than the oddsmakers have expected over the last six meetings. Five of them have gone over the total. This week’s total is about 52, 53 I believe. It does look like a few books opened around 55.5, so it’s come down a little bit.”

Purdum added that the earliest lines for the game pegged it as Georgia being a 20-point favorite. He explained that the movement is because of Georgia living up to its offseason hype, and South Carolina falling short of expectations, and losing starting QB Jake Bentley to injury.