Then why is it called NCAA D-1A football?
Of course in the end it's really the schools that decide, regardless of who's the titular head it's the schools that'll lose the money and therefore won't sign on for anything else.
Any attempt to get a playoff will be blocked by those mid-ranked teams that regularly go to meaningless bowl games but won't anymore if those bowl games are put into a meaningful playoff system.
You said exactly what I was going to counter with.
The schools and particularly the ADs and conference Presidents have all the power in football in D-1A. It's the only one of it's kind.
And it's only real connection to the NCAA is that it's played by college players.
the NCAA doesn't regulate who gets into what bowl games. That is between the conferences, their deals with certain bowl games, and the committees that select the teams formed by those bowl games.
If there were to be a playoff, the power for such would reside with the BCS committee at this time.
The NCAA generally forms a committee in certain sports to selected who gets into a tournament (basketball for instance, Hockey for another).