The NCAA has nothing to do with clearing Ron Holland to play, and has nothing to do with the need for Texas to release him.
All of that is as a result of the National Letter of Intent program, which is not an NCAA deal. NLI is a voluntary deal which all the colleges have agreed to, and it is administered by the NCAA, but is not an NCAA program or an NCAA rule. The Collegiate Commissioners Association provides governance and more or less enforces it.
No athlete is required to sign an LOI, and no school is required to join the NLI program. But every school in D-1 and D-2 has joined. And the need for Holland to get a release is strictly an NLI thing; if you sign an LOI and don’t spend an academic year in residence at that school without getting a release, you can’t play at another school and you lose a year of eligibility. If Holland didn’t get the release from EOE and came here anyway, he couldn’t play in 23-24 and he would be a sophomore in 24-25.