Nunzio Campanile offered his support for Artur Sitkowski’s decision to sit out and contemplate a redshirt year earlier in the week.

The Rutgers interim head coach does not seem to be quite as on-board with Raheem Blackshear’s apparent choice to take one.

Campanile seemed blindsided by the star running back’s decision to join Sitkowski on the sideline for Saturday’s 48-7 loss to Maryland at SHI Stadium in Piscataway - a last-minute move that will take the Scarlet Knights’ best offensive player out of the mix for the remainder of the season if he follows through on his redshirt plan.

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“Am I disappointed by it? Incredibly. Do I understand it? I guess so. I guess that’s the way the world is now,” Campanile said. "I think that this is a game about your team, and it’s about sacrificing personal accomplishment for the success of the team. But that’s the world they live in and they have got a lot of people telling them, ‘Worry about you, worry about you.’

“I get it. But I’m raising two boys. I’m trying to raise them about being willing to sacrifice some of the things they want for what’s good for the people around them. I get it. That’s the world that we are living in, and he’s a great kid and we’ll see what happens in the coming weeks.”

Blackshear, who was not made available to reporters after the game, dressed and was on the sideline for the contest. He is one of Rutgers’ four captains, but he did not go out for the coin toss. Blackshear, the team’s leading receiver this season, could change his mind, but all signs point toward him missing the remaining seven games in order to preserve a year of eligibility with just four games played this fall. "That seems to be the case,” Campanile said. Blackshear is a junior, so he would have two years of eligibility remaining if he does redshirt.

Sitkowski has only played in three games this season, so he can appear in one more and still redshirt. The sophomore will have three years of eligibility left if he redshirts. Sitkowski told Campanile he is open to playing in one more game if an “emergency” situation arises while he is deciding how he wants to handle the rest of the season, but otherwise true freshman Cole Snyder is new starter Johnny Langan’s backup. Snyder made his college debut Saturday, taking one snap after Langan had to leave the field with blood on him.

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“I’m going to worry about the guys that are on our team that play really hard out there for our team. That’s what we’re going to focus on,” Campanile said. “I can’t tell you that I had the best answer to deal with that on short notice. It’s something that we will address obviously over the course of this week, and we’ll address it in a way that our team feels comfortable with it.”

The Rutgers players who spoke to the media after the game all supported Blackshear and Sitkowski, who was also not made available to reporters. Some offered more muted comments than others, but no one criticized either player.

“I support them. Those guys are my brothers," linebacker Drew Singleton said. “I support anyone that’s wearing that ‘R.’"

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James Kratch may be reached at jkratch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JamesKratch. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.