TAMPA, Fla. -- Speaking to the media for the first time following a run of recent negative headlines for his program, coach Dan Mullen was admittedly frank.

The news lately hasn't been great.

"Obviously when you look at the situation that goes on, to me it's really disappointing for us when we have individuals, whether it's a student-athlete or a staff member, make a decision that really negatively affects them but also shines a little bit of a negative on the program," Mullen said. "To me that's really disappointing, because we spend a lot of time on decision-making with our guys."

The Gators, of course, have had several of those of late.

The first came when assistant director of player personnel Otis Yelverton was arrested on April 23 and jailed on a third-degree felony charge of aggravated cyber-stalking after allegedly leaving a voicemail for his ex-girlfriend threatening to "blow up" her car after harassing her with at least 40 calls, texts and Facebook messages.

Yelverton is currently on administrative leave, with Mullen waiting to see the legal process play out before making a decision on his future.

Shortly after that, police reports surfaced of two alleged sexual assault complaints against freshman quarterback Jalon Jones on May 2. Jones had already agreed to leave the program in the wake of that incident, though he had played in the team's spring game a week after the alleged assaults.

Mullen said the team had incomplete information on the incident at the spring game, though they had begun to hear of the matter. Jones was suspended from the team following the spring game.

"I think reports were coming out to us at that point, but within that situation, as reports get to you, we try to turn them over and follow the university protocol that we have and the campus protocol that we have," Mullen said. "Which I think we immediately tried to follow the campus protocol with everything that happened. When we got the details of the situation, we immediately with him suspended him from team activities until we could get all of the information that we needed."

On May 6, defensive back Brian Edwards was arrested and charged with first-demeanor misdemeanor battery after allegedly grabbing his girlfriend by the neck. Mullen said Edwards is not with the team right now but is taking classes still.

But the alleged violence against women is something that is very troubling for Mullen.

It also played at least a minor role in the news on May 9 that top-rated early enrollee Chris Steele was entering the transfer portal. Though homesickness played a major part in the decision to leave Florida, Steele was also upset after requesting to change dorm rooms because he was uncomfortable living with Jones, his roommate.

That change was going to be accommodated in the summer, but Jones' subsequent involvement in the alleged sexual assaults soured the Steele family on his situation at Florida even further and provided him with a chance to potentially secure a waiver to play immediately elsewhere. Steele announced he has transferred to Oregon on Tuesday.

Mullen didn't speak much on the Steele situation, but he made it clear his transfer was about more than just him being upset with the room change request.

"I think with Chris and his situation, we discussed with him and his family a lot of things that went into the decision he was going to make to go back to school on the West coast," Mullen said. "There are a bunch of things that went into that decision. I don't want to go into all of them because they were really a private conversation between us and his family. I think those are tough decisions for family, and I'd rather leave a lot of those things privately."

Regardless, the recent run of bad news has hurt the perception of a team that won 10 games in Mullen's first season.

And rightly so, as some of the missteps certainly haven't been good. But Mullen isn't angry as much as simply disappointed.

"Obviously you reflect on a lot of different things that go on in the program," Mullen said. "And we're always trying to evaluate ourselves to make sure we do things better. I don't know differently, but how we're doing things better.

"In every aspect of the program we're trying to evaluate things and how we do things better. In these situations I look back and we're constantly trying to educate our guys on making good decisions in life, and we're going to continue constantly doing that. That's really important to me and that's a major part of coaching and the development of these young guys; in our program it is. That it's not just football, it's every aspect of life."

247Sports reporter Blake Alderman was present for Mullen's stop in Tampa and provided the quotations used in this report.