Ex-Wolfpack coach Herb Sendek caught up in viral KFC Twitter Hoax?

Now for a little light-hearted quasi-Wolfpack related news.

Herb Sendek was a polarizing figure at NC State.

He was the coach of one of the most talented Wolfpack teams in years (2004-2005). He was the guy who brought in NC State great Julius Hodge. He was the guy who stepped in and took NC State from bottom feeder to their first 4 NCAA Tournaments since the Jimmy V years.

He was also the guy that never connected with Wolfpack fans. He was a different type of guy who ran a different type of system, and as soon as things stopped trending up, the Wolfpack fans turned on him.

Maybe it was the frequent blow-outs at the hands of rival UNC, or the inability to compete for an ACC title with one of the best players that’s ever committed to NC State. Whatever the case, NC State let him go after the 2006 season.

Sendek spent time at Arizona State before wearing out his welcome there in 2015. He now coaches at Santa Clara.

None of this, however, is why we bring up Herb Sendek. We bring him up because to no fault of his own, he’s found himself caught up in a nationwide viral story/scandal involving Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Let us explain.

Twitter user @edgette22 spotted something interesting while looking at the Kentucky Fried Chicken twitter page.

.@KFC follows 11 people.

Those 11 people? 5 Spice Girls and 6 guys named Herb.

11 Herbs & Spices. I need time to process this.

— Edge (@edgette22) October 19, 2017

KFC, which touts their original recipe as having ’11 herbs and spices,’ had just won the internet. The tweet went viral and the chicken behemoth received a month of positive press over the witty move.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, one of the ‘Herbs’ was none other than former NC State coach Herb Sendek.

Currently, some of the media is touting KFC as genius for the move. Especially after they supposedly sent a framed portrait of @Edgette22 riding on the back of Colonel Sanders to his home.

KFC painted that guy who discovered its social media secret getting a piggyback ride from the Colonelhttps://t.co/WBcFxAwYKS pic.twitter.com/JjKWPibZ9c

— Mashable (@mashable) November 10, 2017

But is this branding genius or a Twitter hoax?

According to a sleuthing Reddit user, this isn’t real at all. Sure, KFC followed ’11 Herbs & Spices’ but did the public care enough to look? Was all the publicity and viral aspects of the campaign real, or a product of the PR firm all along? Here were his findings when another user asked if @Edgette22 could have been part of the hoax all along…

100% yes. According to the Chicago Tribune article linked above and his Twitter profile, the guy works for a PR firm called TallGrass Public Relations. His Twitter account for the past few months is a bunch of posts about Yum Brands’ two main stores, KFC and Taco Bell. 100% this entire thing is a full set up and this wasn’t some random guy who just happened to discover the 11 Twitter followers of KFC.

So what do you believe? Was this a ploy all along? And what does Herb Sendek think? We sent an email to try to get a quote, but have yet to receive a response. We may never know…and honestly, it probably doesn’t matter.

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Now back to your regularly scheduled, more tightly-related, NC State content.